James Goren's best buy has been a two-bedroom unit in Forrest Hill, which he purchased in 2016 for $630,000. The property was originally passed in at auction, but as the top bidder he was able to negotiate with the vendors to secure a deal. His plan was to rearrange it to add another half-size bedroom, but his strategy didn't impress the agent or the auctioneer when they first heard it: "I talked to them and said, 'I'd like to bounce an idea off you. I don't like the layout and I want to change it a little bit'. I explained what I wanted to do and they looked at me like I was crazy. They said it was impossible: 'Don't do it, because you'll destroy the look and feel of the property, just renovate it.' But when I finished converting it, it felt like it had been designed like that from day one - you'd never know what it used to be before. The real estate agent visited after I finished and he was blown away - he brought the whole office back to look at it." Adding the half-sized bedroom to the 75m2 property has increased its rentability; the current family use it as a kids' bedroom. The renovation cost around $50,000 and it now rents for $630 a week. The property was valued earlier this year at $860,000.