SUZY Maas has bought, decorated and resold her homes, five times in six years, to make a handsome profit.

And much of her experience has gone into her house-doctoring company. She knows that certain simple changes do emphatically push up the price you can ask for your home, and that decluttering is more than just cleaning the windows and hanging up your clothes.

“It is worth spending a little money on getting rid of dusty curtains and replacing them with white, light-reflecting blinds, and putting fresh, white grouting into the bathroom tiles. Little things have a huge impact,” Maas says.

She has done it so many times that her contacts book is full of bargain warehouse addresses, wholesale shops and markets, where she picks up the accessories that save busy Londoners a lot of hassle, time and money.

Maas, 30, started the Final Touch, a housedoctor service for people wanting to prepare their home for rental or resale, in 1999. She offers moneysaving tips and is forever bargain hunting for clients. She charges £75 an hour or £475 plus VAT a day for her services.

She trained as an interior decorator and in 1998 went in search of her first home. Maas bought a dark, three-bedroom Battersea flat for £125,000. “It was like a train compartment, with all the rooms running off the corridor. I gutted and renovated it on a shoestring,” she says. She spent £12,000 on improving it and sold it a year later for £175,000.

Next came the three-bedroom house in Clapham that had been rented out for years. “It was damp and smelly. I put in a new bathroom, kitchen and redecorated,” she says. (Purchase price: £141,000. Spent: £22,000. Sold 18 months later for £240,000.) Her subsequent south London property required a loft conversion. “Cosmetic changes included repainting the kitchen units and retiling,” she says. (Profit made 18 months later was £69,000.) Then there was the four-bedroom house in Brixton in 2000. “I knocked through and extended to make one big kitchen, divided the huge bathroom into two – essential in a four bedroom house – and stripped acres of woodwork,” says Maas. (Purchase price: £275,000. Spent: £41,000. Sold 12 months later for £380,000.) She has learnt from her mistakes. “Before making decisions, it’s best to live in the property. I’ve also made the mistake of choosing colours from charts instead of painting samples on the wall. I’ve forgotten to keep fabric and colour references for touching up. I’ve dispensed with an architect after they have submitted drawings, instead of retaining them for spotting problems and dealing with builders’ disputes, which saves money ultimately,” says Maas.

But she has flair, targets her market precisely and has enjoyed a buoyant property market. “It’s getting harder. So many people are doing it that it’s difficult to find a wreck,” she admits.

Her current three-bedroom Victorian home is in Clapham. She lives there with her boyfriend.

“It hadn’t been touched for 20 years. I put in sash windows, rewired, renovated, redecorated, added a bathroom and extended the kitchen with a glass roof to the side return,” she says.

Thriftily, she changed the ancient nylon carpet for an oatmeal wool Berber for just £12.99 a square metre; made her chenille curtains (£5 a metre at Brixton market) in the bedroom, and bought a stylish oak refectory table with eight dining chairs – for £ 2,000 f rom The Collection in Parsons Green.

The cramped, dark kitchen had broken appliances, Seventies pine and severe damp. “It was like a dark tunnel,” she says. Now, measuring 15ft by 30ft, it is a light and contemporary Alternative Plans creation.

It has glossy tusk-coloured Hacker units, chunky brushed-steel handles, lime-white walls, a mushroom limestone floor, durable quartz/ granite work surfaces, a range cooker and modish Bisque floor-level radiators.

The bathrooms are equally stylish. Out went the migraine-inducing wallpaper, handheld plastic shower and rotten timber bath panels. In came fawns, ceramic limestone-effect tiles (£27 a square metre) and a double-ended Bette bath. She built another bathroom with Castle Grey walls, skylights, Bateige grey tiles on the walls (“£34 a square metre”) and a sheet of sturdy glass as a shower wall. Its elegant wall-hung Saneux loo, elongated Plan basin and star-shaped shower came from Bathrooms at Source.

The house is an eclectic mix. “I like modern with old,” Maas says. In the sitting room, the look is traditional. The walls are crisp calico and there is a Sixties American oval glass and perspex table. But there is also an 18th century French commode and a period Venetian mirror.

Similarly, her Dix Blue bedroom has modern nickel pedestal side tables, a funky mirrored fireplace and fauxfur bed throw. But it also has a Chippendale tallboy, Louis XVI armchairs and an ornate bedhead (“a junk shop find”) of mirror, gilt and turquoise-painted wood.

Maas has perhaps inherited her mother’s passion.

When she was a child, her mother relocated annually over six years. “For years we just moved to parallel streets,” she remembers.

Many people find uprooting stressful and hate renovating properties. “Every time I move, I swear it is the last. Then I get bored.” She has lived in her current home since 2002. It must be time to sell? “Oh no,” she exclaims. “I adore this place.” A week later, she calls with a confession: “I’ve just put the house on the market.”

HOW to get the look
The Final Touch, 12 St John’s Hill Grove, SW11 (020 7228 4233; www.thefinaltouch.co.uk).
Dining table and chairs: The Collection, 76 New Kings Road, SW6 (020 7736 1166; www.thecollection.uk.com).
Floor-level radiators: Bisque Radiators, 244 Belsize Road, NW6 (020 7328 2225; www.bisque.co.uk).
Contemporary Boffi and Hacker kitchen: Alternative Plans, 4 Hester Road, SW11 (020 7228 6460; www.alternativeplans.co.uk) and 160 Notting Hill Gate, W11 (020 7243 9747).
Carpet: Carpet Base, 190 Cavendish Road, SW12 (020 8675 2232).
Bathrooms: Bathrooms at Source, 128 Garratt Lane, SW18, (020 8870 0066).
Paint: Farrow & Ball, 249 Fulham Road, SW3 (020 7351 0273).
Bateige tiles: Granite and Marble International, Westminster House, 35 Pensbury Place, SW8 (020 7498 2742).
Limestone-effect tiles: Moores Building Merchants, 35 Bedford Road, SW4 (020 7737 3539).
Where to get paints colour-matched: Handyman’s Corner, 138 Acre Lane, SW2, (020 7733 1149); Homebase; B&Q.
Architect: Martin Reynolds, 14 St John’s Hill Grove, SW11 (020 7223 1420).
Architectural salvage yards: Bacon Street Salvage, 12 Bacon Street, E1 (020 7613 4672); Old Time Architectural Salvage, 217 Blackshaw Road, SW17 (020 8672 7205).
Fabrics: from markets such as Brixton and Southall, and large retailers such as Fabrics Galore, 52-54 Lavender Hill, SW11 (020 7738 9589), Fabrics Direct (0800 975 7296).
Second-hand/antique items: household clearance shops, junk shops or country antiques fairs.
Many large retailers have clearance shops selling discontinued lines and damaged stock: Sofa Workshop, 8 High Street, Ealing Broadway Centre, W5 (020 8579 0693); Ocean Furniture, 2 Trevelyan Road, SW17 (020 8672 2020); some large retailers such as Heal’s often have one-off clearance sales, ask in-store for details.
Furniture warehouses: Comfortably Off, 70a Silverthorne Road, SW8 (020 7622 9393).
Auction rooms: Lots Road Auctions, 71 Lots Road, SW10 (020 7376 6800); Criterion Auctions, 41-47 Chatfield Rd, SW11 (020 7228 5563) and 53-55 Essex Road, Islington, N1 (020 7359 5707).