General FTB question - houses seem too cheap!

poppysarah

How well do you know the road?

hethmar

Well, re the mortgage, most people do not live in the same house for that many years. You will sell up, settle the mortgage and move on.

HeadInSand_2

Use FireFox and install http://www.property-bee.com/ - very good for learning the Rightmove history of properties...

chewmylegoff

whathavewedone wrote: »

Having renovated a 3 bed semi myself that seemed in generally good nick but just hideous 1970s decor I would say that you need to be prepared to pay at least twice as much as you imagine it will cost.

Things that we hadn't anticipated included:

A ceiling collapsing when nasty fake beams were removed

A wall collapsing when tiles were taken off (they had tiled over tiles and the bathroom had been added on at some point after the property was built)

The kitchen was a complete and utter nightmare, it had tongue and groove everywhere (I know this is quite trendy now but trust me it looked like a massive sauna) including the ceiling and took much longer and therefore cost a lot more than we anticipated

Once the woodchip wallpaper (and the paper under that and the paper under that) was stripped off everywhere needed plastering

Luckily we sold it for the asking price in 2007 because if we had waited another year we'd never have got back the money we spent never mind made a profit.

Be very sure it's where you want to live because you could be stuck there for a long time. And living in a house that needs gutting is not much fun. Living without heating and hot water, no bathroom, no kitchen.

amen to this.

"a bit of DIY" is not what somewhere that is described as "in need of modernisation" needs.

having gutted and refurbed a 4 bed semi i would say dont do it unless you know what you are doing. it probably needs new central heating, a new kitchen and bathroom, and complete redecoration throughout. it will no doubt have artex on every surface as well.

it will take at least twice as long as you think, cost at least twice as much as you think. you also will find that you actually don't have the required skills to do most of the jobs to a decent standard, so it will look twice as !!!! as you think.

plus in this market it won't have increased in value despite your meddling, it will be worth less!

LittleMissAspie

Well I guess Stafford is a cheap area then. The cheapest non-shared-ownership 3 bedroom house within 10 miles of me is this!
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-17480650.html
(I do hope someone buys it and renovates it actually, it could be really lovely)

There is also one for 110k but it's not mortgageable. The first "normal" houses start at 120k.