Some Advice Please

WaveyDave_2

for a potential first time mover.

My wife and I bought our current house as first time buyers, it was a new build. We have been considering moving for a while, but have been unable to find any houses we like within our price range (typically they're always 20k too much :rolleyes: ) We have finally seen a house that has potential that we quite like, but it needs some work.

Having never "moved" home before, we're not sure what to do/where to go. We viewed the house last night, and have a market appraisal booked for our house next week (with the same agent). As I said, we like the house, but we're not sure we'd have enough money to "do it up" to our liking. As we don't even have a buyer lined up, we can't really put an offer in, but we've been told we can express an interest. The EA last night said the owner is looking to just get shot of it, and would be prepared to take 12k under the asking price (which is £172k).

To make it worth our while moving, we would need to do the following -

Loft conversion
knock kitchen and breakfast room into one, then fit new kitchen etc
extend bathroom and fit new suite etc
create en-suite in another bedroom and fit suite etc
knock front boundary wall down to create driveway
new gas boiler/central heating
new PVCu windows
remove wallpaper/skim walls
remove marble fireplaces and block off some of the chimneys (4 in total)

and some other less major things

We would have a total budget of approx £35-£40k. Having never done any renovation work before, we have no idea if this is realistic.

How do we go about getting prices for these types of things when we don't actually have an offer in on the property, and more to the point - is it reasonable to do so? Property has been on market for 3.5 months, had some offers which apparently were ridiculously low, but owner is apparently now very keen to sell.

Any advice would be gratefully received!

(sorry about the length of the post )

Shrimp_Stu

Your situation sounds a bit like what we faced when we moved last year to our current home. It needed alot of work.
You need to assess your situation:
1. Do you intend to stay in this house long term (making all the renovations worthwhile to your living experience)
2. Check what similar houses in that particular street sell for (there is no point in spending 40K on a house if you are not going to see this reflected in any future price).
3. Prioritise your work - do you need to convert the loft straight away, renovate the kitchen, etc.
4. Is there any work you can do yourself - i.e. stripping the walls? Our hallway was painted (bright) Orange, including woodwork (skirting board, picture rail & stair bannister) - we thought we could wait to decorate it - but by the first night the wife had the white paint out!!
Is it habitable? When we moved we needed to put in new windows as there was a gap in one! For a 3 bed 1930's semi, with 2 very large bay windows (7 sections) we paid £4,950 (Southend-on-sea) but if you want to find out about costs to the work you need then hop over to the In My Home forum.

WaveyDave_2

Thanks for the answer.

I need to get the work estimated etc, is it reasonable for me to ask the EA to let me/tradespeople in to quote even before we have offered?

Houses in the area don't come up very often, it's a nice area and houses tend to come up when one of the old people dies! The last house to sell was in 2004 and went for mid 180s. We would envisage being there for perhaps 5 years or so, we would probably look at it as a stop gap to help us climb the property ladder!

Thanks again.

Dave

plane_boy2000

First you need to sell your house. Sorry to be all doom and gloom, but the seller will not entertain an offer until you are in a position to proceed. I would suggest that it would be reasonable to ask the EA to allow you to take a tradesman in to asses the property when you have sold yours and are ready to look at making an offer. No point in investing time and effort in it until you can proceed.

WaveyDave_2

Thanks for the reply plane_boy2000. This is kind of what I've been working with. The only thing that worries me, is that we have literally not seen anything else we like, and we're both afraid that if we put our house on the market and it sells quickly, but we miss out on this house, we won't find anything else! We're also scared that we'll sell ours and find we're unable to afford this one, if you see what I mean.

The house is currently unoccupied, and the EA last night said we can by all means show an interest, but obviously if someone in a better position comes along then the seller will choose them, which is fair enough.

The thing is, how do we work out if we can afford to buy this house and renovate, if we can't get access to it? Seems a bit back to front!

Cheers

Dave

cattie

It may help if you mention the area that you live in. Down here in London & the SE a loft conversion can set you back between £25,000-£30,000.

The thing you have to remember with building work is that it nearly always costs a lot more than the estimates. Add a third to any given price & you won't get any nasty surprises. Also with major work there are always problems that crop up & again these add to the final cost.

clutton_2

if the house is empty, what is the problem with access ? why not ask a couple of builders to go in as prospective purchasers for a look round (they may put offers in on their own behalf though !) and then discuss the approximate cost of the work after they have been in.

marble fireplaces often add value.

for the majority of the works you specify you will need building regs (i suspect you may need plannig permission for the loft extension)

i cannot imagine you doing all that work for the money you quote. i don't think the refurbishments will get you your money back if you only stay for a few years.