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New windows and central heating - imapct on value?

2»

Comments

  • adonis10
    adonis10 Posts: 1,810 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Have you asked local agents as suggested. They will know the local market better than anyone on here? Anything else from here is just guess work

    Will be doing that before committing to anything. Just looking for very general info/advice here.
  • Doozergirl
    Doozergirl Posts: 34,082 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    edited 10 March 2011 at 12:08PM
    adonis10 wrote: »
    Dorset.

    No quotes yet as still sorting out the basics such as bathroom, kitchen etc. Obviously will do when required. Just trying to get advice as don't want to spend 3-3.5k if it won't be re-couped when selling.

    How are kitchen and bathroom basics exactly?

    People are incredibly wary of developed houses at the moment, especially where it's clear that you haven't gone the full mile to genuinely improve the value or the actual house. There is an order in which you renovate a house and that starts with the "basics" like central heating and upgrading electrics (which I a going to put a bet on it needing doing if it has no central heating to start with). As soon as a surveyor steps foot in the house and notices there is no central heating and the ageing windows haven't been replaced, they are going to be all over it looking for what else needs doing. Damp proof course, roof, pointing, insulation... at which point he will start ripping ££s off the proposed valuation.

    It is entirely pointless 'refurbishing' a house with a little bit of plastering, paint and carpet and shoving a nice new kitchen over the bones of an ageing house when central heating is an absolute essential for people. They are going to have to pay for a plumber to come and do it, pull up carpets and floorboards, drill holes in the wall and make a general mess! And an electrician might have been needed in the first place who would have needed to chip at the walls also.

    You will not add any value to the property with a new kitchen and bathroom when the basics haven't been addressed - in fact these are the things that people don't mind organising themselves.

    If it's worth doing at all, it's worth doing properly, or people will have to undo what you've done to create a liveable house. I'm actually shocked that you might think that a new kitchen is worth more to people than being warm!

    Strip the wallpaper please before painting the house as well, for pity's sake. People will look at painted wallpaper and start redecorating in their head.

    This house has been on forever. "refurbished" without the basics covered, it's been on the market forever. They've just changed agents when I could tell them immediately why people aren't buying it. Done purely for profit, magnolia paint doesn't cut it with buyers anymore! You simply cannot trust that anything they have done has been done to a lasting standard or that there aren't more surprises to be found. If there is one thing true in this market, it's that buyers are looking for the soundest investment they can make in a market which is currently headed backwards.
    http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-32313410.html

    My advice to you would be to sell as is. Let someone else do it entirely, with the care it deserves. Unless you know how to do things both well, and on a strict budget, you will be worse off than when you started. The person that buys it won't be a 'developer', it will someone looking for a home.

    If you do it and don't do it all properly, you will almost certainly lose money when people see through the facade and realise it was done badly for additional profit and start spending money on it again.
    Everything that is supposed to be in heaven is already here on earth.
  • adonis10
    adonis10 Posts: 1,810 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Doozergirl wrote: »
    How are kitchen and bathroom basics exactly?

    People are incredibly wary of developed houses at the moment, especially where it's clear that you haven't gone the full mile to genuinely improve the value or the actual house. There is an order in which you renovate a house and that starts with the "basics" like central heating and upgrading electrics (which I a going to put a bet on it needing doing if it has no central heating to start with). As soon as a surveyor steps foot in the house and notices there is no central heating and the ageing windows haven't been replaced, they are going to be all over it looking for what else needs doing. Damp proof course, roof, pointing, insulation... at which point he will start ripping ££s off the proposed valuation.

    It is entirely pointless 'refurbishing' a house with a little bit of plastering, paint and carpet and shoving a nice new kitchen over the bones of an ageing house when central heating is an absolute essential for people. They are going to have to pay for a plumber to come and do it, pull up carpets and floorboards, drill holes in the wall and make a general mess! And an electrician might have been needed in the first place who would have needed to chip at the walls also.

    You will not add any value to the property with a new kitchen and bathroom when the basics haven't been addressed - in fact these are the things that people don't mind organising themselves.

    If it's worth doing at all, it's worth doing properly, or people will have to undo what you've done to create a liveable house. I'm actually shocked that you might think that a new kitchen is worth more to people than being warm!

    Strip the wallpaper please before painting the house as well, for pity's sake. People will look at painted wallpaper and start redecorating in their head.

    This house has been on forever. "refurbished" without the basics covered, it's been on the market forever. They've just changed agents when I could tell them immediately why people aren't buying it. Done purely for profit, magnolia paint doesn't cut it with buyers anymore! You simply cannot trust that anything they have done has been done to a lasting standard or that there aren't more surprises to be found. If there is one thing true in this market, it's that buyers are looking for the soundest investment they can make in a market which is currently headed backwards.
    http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-32313410.html

    My advice to you would be to sell as is. Let someone else do it entirely, with the care it deserves. Unless you know how to do things both well, and on a strict budget, you will be worse off than when you started. The person that buys it won't be a 'developer', it will someone looking for a home.

    If you do it and don't do it all properly, you will almost certainly lose money when people see through the facade and realise it was done badly for additional profit and start spending money on it again.

    THanks for the advice.

    Few things I didn't mention:
    - I know nothing about this sort of thing, but the person doing it does so I'm sure these issues are being addressed.
    - It's not a bodge job at all. It's 85% certain that windows and central heating will be done. I was simply asking advice based on this.
    - It's not all about profit. All I am asking is if the value before refurb is 180k and 10k is spent on it, what is the chance of getting 190k, not 195 or 200. It's inheritance, rather than property development, but, at the same time, we don't want to spend unnecessarily.
    - It's not a 'lick of paint and new kitchen job'. The kitchen and bathroom needed replacing - fact. Central heating is desirable so it will more than likely be done.

    5 windows are required and we've had a quote of £2,800. Does this seem expensive? Sorry, I haven't got the measurements so this may be a pointless question.
  • poppysarah
    poppysarah Posts: 11,522 Forumite
    edited 10 March 2011 at 12:36PM
    adonis10 wrote: »
    - It's not all about profit. All I am asking is if the value before refurb is 180k and 10k is spent on it, what is the chance of getting 190k, not 195 or 200. It's inheritance, rather than property development, but, at the same time, we don't want to spend unnecessarily.
    - It's not a 'lick of paint and new kitchen job'. The kitchen and bathroom needed replacing - fact. Central heating is desirable so it will more than likely be done.

    5 windows are required and we've had a quote of £2,800. Does this seem expensive? Sorry, I haven't got the measurements so this may be a pointless question.


    Sounds dear to me.

    You've got to factor in the time and effort of getting the work done too.

    New windows and central heating probably mean a rewire too. Which means major plastering work and redecoration. When you consider this you may as well add in a new bathroom and kitchen.

    You could easily spend £30k if you don't do anything yourself.

    Put the house on the market and see how it goes. There's almost no point doing bits of a job ... it's all or nothing. If you only do a bit people will wonder why.

    Sell as is and let someone else have the hassle of doing it up.

    EDIT: And soffitts, gutters, work to garden, roof etc etc etc etc etc Once you start you can't stop!
  • Doozergirl
    Doozergirl Posts: 34,082 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    edited 10 March 2011 at 12:36PM
    Central heating is more desirable than a new kitchen!

    This is the very basic rule of how you make a profit on development:
    a) You look at the end value of a house that is perfect.
    b) You work out how much the house will cost to renovate, the cost of fees, mortgage payments or lost interest and a contingency fund.
    c) You work out how much profit you want to make.
    Then you do the maths. A minus B minus C = D (the price you want to pay for the property).

    Now D and the actual market value of the property (in it's current state) are likely to be different numbers. The market value is going to be higher than a developer wants to pay. So the trick comes in finding a house that costs you less than it's actual market value.

    Profit always comes from the price you pay for a property. And that does mean that you should be able to sell the property as soon as you buy it for more than you paid.

    Where you are is that you already own the house. So you can make the decision to sell it for it's current market value (which will be the cost finished minus the cost of work) to someone who loves the house and that is simply how you get the best price for it. If you do the work properly, you would expect to recoup the cost of the work, no more really.

    Everyone thinks they are a property developer. The reality is very different. In a rising market people made money by doing some work and making money from rising prices, it wasn't their interior design skills. In a falling market, people would simply be best not to look a gift horse in the mouth and sell it on. Use a decent agent who charges a sensible fee, creates decent pictures, knows what grammar looks like and will put a nice floor-plan on the ad.

    Yes £2,800 is high. We pay less than that for 10 windows but we've been doing it for years, have the windows manufactured ourselves and pay a man separately to do it. I still wouldn't touch a general refurbishment and expect a profit. The only additional profit you are going to make is if you can do it comprehensively, and batter down the prices without compromising on quality. Not easy. It's a full time job for people!
    Everything that is supposed to be in heaven is already here on earth.
  • adonis10
    adonis10 Posts: 1,810 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Doozergirl wrote: »
    Central heating is more desirable than a new kitchen!

    This is the very basic rule of how you make a profit on development:
    a) You look at the end value of a house that is perfect.
    b) You work out how much the house will cost to renovate, the cost of fees, mortgage payments or lost interest and a contingency fund.
    c) You work out how much profit you want to make.
    Then you do the maths. A minus B minus C = D (the price you want to pay for the property).

    Now D and the actual market value of the property (in it's current state) are likely to be different numbers. The market value is going to be higher than a developer wants to pay. So the trick comes in finding a house that costs you less than it's actual market value.

    Profit always comes from the price you pay for a property. And that does mean that you should be able to sell the property as soon as you buy it for more than you paid.

    Where you are is that you already own the house. So you can make the decision to sell it for it's current market value (which will be the cost finished minus the cost of work) to someone who loves the house and that is simply how you get the best price for it. If you do the work properly, you would expect to recoup the cost of the work, no more really.

    Everyone thinks they are a property developer. The reality is very different. In a rising market people made money by doing some work and making money from rising prices, it wasn't their interior design skills. In a falling market, people would simply be best not to look a gift horse in the mouth and sell it on. Use a decent agent who charges a sensible fee, creates decent pictures, knows what grammar looks like and will put a nice floor-plan on the ad.

    Yes £2,800 is high. We pay less than that for 10 windows but we've been doing it for years, have the windows manufactured ourselves and pay a man separately to do it. I still wouldn't touch a general refurbishment and expect a profit. The only additional profit you are going to make is if you can do it comprehensively, and batter down the prices without compromising on quality. Not easy. It's a full time job for people!

    Interesting. Thanks. You seem knowledgeable, are you in the prop development game?

    The difficulty is that half of it has been done so do you think it'd be worth finish what is in progress and then get an agent to value it and go from there?

    Let me clarify - it has been valued at 185k. It's not being done with profit in mind, just don't want to have it valued at 185, spend 10k and then sell for 185. May as well have just sold it as it was. It's difficult to discuss on t'internet as a) you've no idea what it looks like and b) I'm a 100% novice and am just looking for advice.

    Noone is saying that they 'are a property developer'. It's simple - a house has been inherited, someone with good general diy* experience has the time to work on it (no labour costs) and that's what is happening.

    I believe that the £2,800 includes the cost to fit the windows. Who else would you recommend we get a quote from?

    *Before you say it, and I know you will, by 'diy' I obviously mean more than the ability to put up shelves.
  • adonis10
    adonis10 Posts: 1,810 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    DO you think it's worth getting another valuation now, in its current state? It's hard to articulate on here but it was not in a great condition as the relative was rather stubborn and could never be persuaded to improve it!
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