Options regarding home improvements

System

Chumpalot wrote: »

The only problem with doing part now and part later is that I'd essentially have to employ the builder twice (or however many times). It'll be cheaper of the works are done in all one go I'd imagine.

No, its even worse than that, you may end up doing jobs two or three times if it takes long enough. My aunt and uncle did similar to you but on a large farmhouse, making a couple of rooms habitable and doing the rest as they had the money. They had work done piecemeal as they could afford it and it took them 20 years and by the time they'd got most of the rest of it done some of the stuff that was done early on had to be redone as it had been ruined by several winters of no heating or, in the case of the kitchen, had worn out. And over that 20 years they lived fairly miserably basically not much different to how people in a squat in an abandoned building would and are only now enjoying the fruits of their labour as they finally managed to finish it by the day they retired. I expect the money they forked out to have work redone wiped out any saving they would have made on finance.

I'm for getting it all done in one go.

Chumpalot

Tarambor - thank you for the reply. This is exactly why I don't want to split the work. I imagine there will be little jobs that we'll have missed and these houses do have a habit of giving us surprises but we'll look to do the main work altogether.

We will continue to save up as much cash as possible until the work starts. Then perhaps consider a smaller loan to bridge any gap.

Cheers

Candyapple

Perhaps another point to consider is what is the ceiling price for houses like yours in the area? London is already being affected by prices dropping, the last thing you want to do is plough £40k into your house only to find that when you come to sell, you won’t be able to recoup that money / possible negative equity. You said you were desperate to get on the ladder 3 years ago and prices were high then, I presume you’ve spent a lot on doing the upstairs too? Don’t forget to factor that into your total costs.

My advice would be to save for another year as much as you can and then see how the market is.

Chumpalot

Thank you Candyapple. That's useful.