First time buyer, help needed.

househunter1

Hoping some more experienced heads can help me out.

I'm interested in buying the below property that's going to best and final on Monday. It's a stunning property that has been renovated and extended to an excellent standard.

It is located in a popular area of York, however the street itself isn't picturesque and I imagine it would comfortably be the most expensive house on the street. For reference next door sold for £363k last June.

Hoping to get some advice on its true value and whether people think its a good buy?

zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/47207747?search_identifier=4ea1f4dc7a588c6023f923181043a7c9#OAmDWHvRktB3Rb7K.97

Thanks!

Jaywood89

It’s really hard to answer that without knowing the area

In comparison to the hous than sold for 90k less, it is finished to a much higher spec, not sure it’s worth 90k more though.

I always ask myself, if I bought the house before the work, would I need to spend 90k to get it to this? I’d ask around look at a 3 bed on the same road, quote from builder etc, if it would cost me 20k to get that from a smaller house then it would be a no brainer for me. But honestly without knowing the area I can’t tell if it’s a good deal, hopefully some of the more experienced posters will come here and help out

Good luck

RedFraggle

It's a cracking area, houses sell easily and for a premium because of the location. It's also got a bigger garden than many in that block of 30s housing. Bishy Road is stupidly popular, it's always been good but the shops went up market and it's gone even madder. It's also catchment for Millthorpe school which adds to the desirability.

cybervic

This is the next door property OP was talking about. http://webv.svr2.realcube.net/PublicFileHandler.ashx?BranchId=a57d37af-cc1e-11e1-9b26-68b5996b0770&FileId=76927976-7f0d-4529-8012-13ef120a2a5e&ContentType=PDF

It's hard to comment without knowing the current property trend in your area. If it's slowing down like where I am then my bid would be around 3%-5% less, if buyers are grabbing all the properties you've seen/liked so far, then I'd offer what I can afford, only if I really want this place and nothing else.

RedFraggle

It isn't slowing here at all and definitely not in the bracket of anything up from a 3-bed semi. We moved last December and i don't think we'd afford it now.

Cakeguts

If I wanted to buy in that road I wouldn't buy that one at any price. The loft room is just silly with all those sloping ceilings and only suitable for a dwarf who doesn't mind going downstairs to the loo in the middle of the night.

It started life as a really small 3 bed semi. 3 bed semis are not a uniform size it depends on the builder.

Bedroom 4 in the extension over the garage is a corridor. 1930s cars were smaller than the ones we have today so any houses built with garages were built for these small cars so you won't be able to get a modern car into the garage unless you push it in. What this also means is that if that garage wasn't built with the house then the drive way would also have been narrow for the same reason. Bedroom 4 is a corridor because it is built over this narrow garage. If you look at the pictures of this room you will see that the bed is up against the wall. They have done this to make the room appear wider.

Bedroom 5 is a box room. In the property details it has a small size child's bed in it because if you put a normal sized single bed in there you probably wouldn't be able to get the door open. Box rooms were for storage and this is what you will have to do with this room.

How I know that this house started off as a small 1930s is by the size of the two double bedrooms. I used to live in a smallish 1930s semi and the biggest bedroom in this house is the size of the smallest bedroom in that house and that one didn't have a bay window you could measure into.

So what they have done is bought a small 1930s house and extended across the back. That extension across the back is the main reason why I wouldn't touch this house with someone else's bargepole.

I have a rotary clothes dryer in my back garden. Where do you put one in this garden? On the patio outside the kitchen or on the lawn. Lets say it is on the lawn. You come out of the kitchen with a load of wet washing and you walk down that flight of stairs to get to the lawn to put the washing out? Where do you keep the lawn mower? The only way you can get to the garage from the back garden is through the house. Dustbins will have to go through the house, garden prunings, will have to go through the house. The only access to the backgarden is through the house. Suppose you go to the garden centre to buy some manure to put on your lovely backgarden. It has to go through the house.

I hope you realise that the parking on the front will only take one car which is why there aren't any in the drive in the photos but you can see that there has only been one by the dry mark on the bricks in the drive If you have two cars there is nowhere to park the second one and this is also why there are so many cars parked in the street.

househunter1

Thank you, appreciate that it's not easy if you don't know the area.

Some sensible comments about the 3rd and fourth bedroom. The extension to the back has been done to a very a high standard and there is ample storage under the decking

My major concern is the property likely to hold/increase its value? RedFraggle, your comments would suggest you think so?

I'm keen on being walking distance from the city centre and parking & garden is important, which all seem at a significant premium. Which seems to put this house ahead of many others in the surrounding area.

RedFraggle

If you want a garden, parking and walking distance to the city you could also look at Heworth: 30s semis there tend to be the larger design and it's an excellent area, Burnholme: More for your money, sizes of houses and area a bit mixed or Holgate: Good area, housing stock mixed.
Buses are pretty good so going further out gets you a better deal. We live in New Earswick and find it easier for getting to town than from Heworth as the bus service is better. We couldn't have afforded our house if it was in south bank or Heworth. Huntington is also a good choice.
If you compare it with next door you're paying for the work that's been done and a premium not to do it yourself.

Cakeguts

househunter1 wrote: »

Thank you, appreciate that it's not easy if you don't know the area.

Some sensible comments about the 3rd and fourth bedroom. The extension to the back has been done to a very a high standard and there is ample storage under the decking

My major concern is the property likely to hold/increase its value? RedFraggle, your comments would suggest you think so?

I'm keen on being walking distance from the city centre and parking & garden is important, which all seem at a significant premium. Which seems to put this house ahead of many others in the surrounding area.

I thought there might be storage under the decking but this still doesn't mean that there is any access to the front of the house except through the house. So where are the dustbins? I don't see any in the photos. I know they will be collected from the front of the house because the bin men can't get into the back of the house without going through it.

Anything that you buy for the garden will have to go through the house to get there.

When you move in you will have to take all your gardening equipment through the house and down those steps at the back to get to the garden storage. The sellers will have to do this in reverse order. Most people who want to buy houses with big backgardens expect to get side access to get to the back.

Have you ever lived in a house where you have to take all the dustbins through the house to put them out for the bin men? The only alternative is that you will have to keep the bins in the front garden. So this very expensive house will permanently have several wheelie bins in the front garden.

The parking is a problem because this is being sold as a family house but there is only room for one car on the drive.

No 29 sold for £282k in Feb last year. Anyone paying £450k for this house is also paying £168k extra for that dreadful back extension plus one unusable loft bedroom. What could you do with to a house if you spent £168k on it?

I don't know how old that extension is but it doesn't look as if it has been there very long. So why are they selling the house?

I can see that people will be blinded by the extension to the kitchen and won't see all the problems with the house and that extension. From inside the extension looks perfect but it is only when you start to think about how you will live in the house that you see what a huge problem it is.

I don't know how big your car is but when it is parked in the drive will you be able to get the passenger doors open? People don't notice things that are so obvious from the pictures. Look at the dry part on the drive that shows where the car was parked before it rained. How much room do you think there is to open the passenger door if it is next to the fence. If you reverse in how do you get out of the driver's door?

I have no idea how they got planning permission for that decking. It must mean that both the neighbours gardens on each side are overlooked.

How old is the extension?

Do they have children? How old are they? If there are small children playing in the backgarden where do they have to go to get to the loo?

If you look closely at the photos of the decking you can see an open child safety gate at the top of the steps.

RedFraggle

The other thing to bear in mind is that if you want an excellent area, a 30s semi with a garden, that close to town, good school catchment, then that block is your best option. Prices are inflated for that reason. You also have easy access to Rowntree park and the river but that area doesn't flood.

kerri_gt

Cakeguts wrote: »

I thought there might be storage under the decking but this still doesn't mean that there is any access to the front of the house except through the house. So where are the dustbins? I don't see any in the photos. I know they will be collected from the front of the house because the bin men can't get into the back of the house without going through it.

I bet they're tucked away behind the hedge at the front of the drive for the purposes of photos.

That wouldn't bother me per-se but not being able to access the front with garden waste etc like you say without going through the house would bug me. I wonder if there's any kind of lane access at the bottom of the garden.