How to be mortgage free in 5 years NO MONTHLY OVERPAYMENT (if you live up north)

AceCobra

Hello,

Although not to the same extreme my Fiancee and myself are planning to do something similar.

May last year we started looking for houses here in Northern Ireland. We fell in love with one in a little quiet area in a tiny Villiage 15 miles outside our main city Belfast. The down side was......

The lady who owned it was near retirement age, worked long hours and in short let the house go to ruin. There was bare floorboards over the entire house, bare stairs with old paint all over it, dity walls with flaking paint, an acient kitchen, overgrown gardens etc etc. She also had to leave 6 months notice with her current job before she could move back to England.

So.... We offered 5k under the asking price of 110k which with some convincing about being flexible, being a first time buyer etc we got agreed. The house was previously agreed 2 months before at £110k but fell through as buyers didn't want to wait 6 months. We completed on the house in mid Jan.

At this point we remained with parents and spent 2 months of mostly weekends and occasinal nights decorating the house. We painted every ceiling and wall, we painted the kitchen units and pulled some out to create more space, we layed basic carpets, laminate etc over the entire house, we sorted out the gardens with some hard work and so on. All in all we didn't spend major amounts of money, paint, brushes, floors, a few tools and what knot. In all honestly it was good fun seeing it come together.

Early this month we moved in, last week the house was valued at £140,000. We are already looking to buy a house of around the same amount or a little more to do exactly the same thing.

A few months of weekends and some hard work doesn't seem much to make over 30k includuing fees!

Martin.

Sallys_Savings

Good luck Martin, hope your next property gos just as well.
We done up our first house just the same and thoroughly enjoyed it too.
If you're able to do this before children come along, its a great way of stepping up the property ladder.
Now my four children are older and the constant outings to hockey, dancing, rowing, running, netball, football, etc are now declining to just 2 children. We're hoping to do the same thing once again, just can't find the right property just yet

missk_ensington

I think the 'council house' thing has come across wrong, I completely agree that in some areas (in and around London, down south, on streets where mostly private, or in nice areas) purchasing a house would be good, but up north, in high-rise or on large estates in can be a huge risk. Its finding the right one, I would advise against it unless you are sure other people are selling successfully and getting a good price for the house, I think it can be a risk if you dont buy in the right area. Sorry I'd offended anyone, I didn't mean it like that!

Spirited_2

My husband and I would like to do this to get on - and up the property ladder, but we don't have the starting capital and we live in the South West where run down houses are hard to find - everybody has watched property ladder (or similar) and have the same ideas.

I think you have to be realistic about what you are capable of as well though - no point taking on a big project that requires structural work if you struggle to re-hang a door or paint a wall.

The key is to get the house at the right price in the first place. That's where a lot of people who fail go wrong. Knowing your market (and making sure that you don't 'over renovate' the house) help though. There's no point designing for trendy yuppies with expensive 'design features' when the people dying to buy your house are young families on a budget - they'll love that power shower, but they aren't going to pay you any extra for it.

Whilst property development isn't quite as reliant on market forces as pure property investment, you would be affected by falling house prices.

charlie007

i am in the process of moving and it is soooooooo expensive with all the legal fees and all. I think i will be staying put for a while!!

tomstickland

If you want to do a house up quickly then I'd never advise living it. It wastes so much effort if you try to keep one bit clean. It's much easier to gut the whole house and then build it back up. I reckon two people and a few tradesmen could renovate a medium house in 6 weeks full time, rather than 18months of weekends/evenings trying to live in the house.

I've done the "live in it" thing and would nver do it that way again.

I think renovation is a fine way of making money. Much better than just buying a place and expecting it to gain value.