Advice for buying a period property

sustainabelle

Hello! We are first time buyers and in the area of Sheffield that we are hoping to buy, most houses are Victorian terraces, ranging from around £150k for a real fixer upper and £240k for a high spec interior. Most of them are 3 bedrooms with the third bedroom in the attic. We are currently renting in the same kind of property so we have an idea of the wonkyness and quirks that come with an old house but not the work involved in its upkeep.

We have looked at properties across this range and have been left feeling quite confused! £230k would be our top end so not much room for fixing what goes wrong. We have quite a significant deposit of £60k so we are wondering if we are better off going for a property on the lower end and use some of the deposit for renovation.

I am viewing one later today for £160k (says its priced for a quick sale) - which apparently just needs cosmetic renovation as it's currently rented to students. I think we would need to spend about £30k for a new kitchen, bathroom, carpets and plenty of DIY over the first couple of years to restore some of its character. But it is functional in its current state of design and mortgage repayments would be £200 pm cheaper than our top end so if there is anything that needs doing structurally we could reallocate that money and save for design upgrades. I am assuming that as it is currently rented it will have to comply with certain regulations for the boiler and the like.

Looking for some advice from period property owners - trying to see past the new coats of paint - what should we be checking in these period properties when viewing? Obviously would have a full structural survey done after an offer is accepted but are there things we can check when viewing? Are we better off buying at our top end with nice interior or doing it ourselves? I am quite crafty so the project does sort of appeal to me! However we probably wont be in the house for more than 6-8 years so some return/not a loss would be nice.

Thanks in advance!

FreeBear

sustainabelle wrote: »

Looking for some advice from period property owners - trying to see past the new coats of paint - what should we be checking in these period properties when viewing?

Has it had any damp proofing work done ?
Run away as you will have an expensive repair bill in 5-10 years time.
Have the walls been painted or rendered with modern materials (K-Rend, cement, Sandtex, etc) ?
Again, problems will become apparent in the future as a result, and could get expensive to fix.
Cracks in the brickwork ?
Minor cracking in the mortar joints are to be expected, but pencil sized & larger that bisect bricks could indicate serious structural issues.

Original fixtures & fittings such as tiled entrance hall, cornices, doors, and moldings ?
Great - Indicates previous owners have resisted the temptation to "modernise".

Smodlet

I know I sound like a broken record but take a builder with you to look it over. Ask around, someone you trust must know a builder they trust. Trust me, you won't regret it.

hazyjo

Are you sure you're comparing like for like location-wise?


If rented to students, is it more of a student area than others? Lots of other students in the road?


Playing another broken record - 'don't buy the worst house in the best street'. (Usually reversed to say 'buy the worst house in the best street', but don't want that taken too literally, it can be a mediocre house or not too hi-spec/modern! Just don't buy a glam one in a crap street just cos the house looks all glossy and nice).

need_an_answer

Look beyond the cosmetic stuff of a new kitchen and bathroom....you may find that your 1st priority will be to upgrade the central heating and electrics.

The best way to look at these doer uppers is not from the outside in but the inside out...so don't assume that because its rented the fabric of it like the heating wont need upgrading to suit your needs better.


Plenty of renovations concentrate on making the decoration lovely but they forget the things that hold the house together...I've seen some lovely renovations in my time but they forgot the roof for example.


If you plan to buy a renovation,budget fully for doing it well and peel back the layers rather than just stripping out the old kitchen/bathroom and replacing it with something else.


These renovation projects can take years too...you don't need to get it done all at once but I would do it properly so you end up with a fantastic solid house done just as you want it.

westernpromise

If the difference between a fixer-upper and a high-spec interior is £90k then almost certainly it will be more economical to buy the former. It probably won't cost £90k to get it from the former to the latter condition, plus it will be your idea of high-spec, rather than someone else's. It must be said that living through works of that nature is thoroughly enervating, time consuming and stressful and that in itself is a factor.

FWIW my experience has been that you may as well buy the wreck because even the nice-looking one may need a lot more doing to it than you imagine. It could need lots attending to, yet still look quite nice to begin with.

So on the high spec houses check out unexpected things like windows. Rotten windows can be painted to look nice but replacing them can be staggeringly expensive. I'm in a conservation area and they're £2,500 each or £40,000 for a whole house. These are not Victorian sash windows, as yours likely would be, but do get yourself an idea of what this sort of thing costs. Also door and window furniture: catches and stays, handles, turnbolts - are they the same pattern through the house? If not, and if this bugs you, you can easily spend £30 or £40 per window or door. It adds up. Likewise light switches: knackered plastic, refurbishable brass, or what is there?

Also note condition of guttering / weatherboard; also things like water pressure. Can you run two showers at once? If not what's involved in enabling this? Has it got a water softener, or anywhere to put one? What about phone / internet cabling? What's the wifi signal like in the attic conversion?

For example, suppose you wanted to wall-mount a TV, with all cabling between it, your router, your TV / DAB aerial, your Blu-Ray player, your XBox and your 5.1 home cinema system (and why not these days, there's a Yamaha one that's only £200) buried in the walls and under the floor. You'd be looking at ripping the room apart to do that. You'd never do that in a fixed-up house, so you can't have it; it's trailing wires for you. But in a fixer-upper, the cost is nil because you'll be ripping the room apart anyway.

If a house is a fixer upper you can correct all this at minimal additional cost versus what you're spending anyway. If it's been cosmetically spruced you can be fairly sure none of this has been done properly and by the time you do it and have made good the walls and floors you've done so much remodelling it may never make sense to have paid up for supposedly better initial condition.

daveyjp

In properties that age there are two areas which, if they haven't been renewed, will be close to needing it:

Roof coverings - they would probably have been Welsh slate when new. If it has been renewed it is usual for concrete tiles to be used - they are much heavier - has the roof structure been improved too?

Lath and plaster walls and ceilings. Walls are a pain to renew, ceilings are a job from hell.

If it has a cellar check for damp and rot in the ground floor timbers.

sustainabelle

hazyjo wrote: »

Are you sure you're comparing like for like location-wise?
If rented to students, is it more of a student area than others? Lots of other students in the road?

There is the occasional student house but mostly its young professionals and young families on that road and roads around. There's a massive cafe culture here which is driving the prices up. We are looking in a really concentrated area but there is such a variation in prices. We had 8 bidders competing for a med-high spec house on the street over - it sold for £40k over the asking within a week of being on the market, this has happened to us twice now. However the ones that need renovating just sit there for months not sold.

westernpromise

sustainabelle wrote: »

There is the occasional student house but mostly its young professionals and young families on that road and roads around. There's a massive cafe culture here which is driving the prices up. We are looking in a really concentrated area but there is such a variation in prices. We had 8 bidders competing for a med-high spec house on the street over - it sold for £40k over the asking within a week of being on the market, this has happened to us twice now. However the ones that need renovating just sit there for months not sold.

And that's actually your opportunity, perhaps. They're not selling because people don't feel confident valuing the risk - what might you need to do that you aren't expecting? In fact the risk of unexpected bills may not be so very different between two houses in different decorative order. As daveyjp has just observed the one with the new roof may not have had it done properly.

As a buyer one of the more persuasive things you can do towards a seller is list out the key areas where the fixer upper lags the refurbed type of house, and show how your bid of £140k is based on the £100k of works needed to turn the one into the other. You're showing your working, in effect, and it's then on them in a respectful way to show how the condition is better than it seems.

phoebe1989seb

need_an_answer wrote: »

Look beyond the cosmetic stuff of a new kitchen and bathroom....you may find that your 1st priority will be to upgrade the central heating and electrics.

The best way to look at these doer uppers is not from the outside in but the inside out...so don't assume that because its rented the fabric of it like the heating wont need upgrading to suit your needs better.


Plenty of renovations concentrate on making the decoration lovely but they forget the things that hold the house together...I've seen some lovely renovations in my time but they forgot the roof for example.


If you plan to buy a renovation,budget fully for doing it well and peel back the layers rather than just stripping out the old kitchen/bathroom and replacing it with something else.


These renovation projects can take years too...you don't need to get it done all at once but I would do it properly so you end up with a fantastic solid house done just as you want it.

Definitely don't rush to do the work if you opt for the fixer upper!

In our first house we put in a cheap, ex-display kitchen that I loathed and ended up replacing two years later. We sold the house within six months of fitting it and although it was mainly the kitchen that got the house sold within two days, of course we didn't recoup the cost of two kitchens.

Later we bought the 'forever' home and took ten years to complete the work to a high standard (it had formerly been let and the landlord had done very little over forty years ). Our priorities were roof repairs, a heating system (no gch prior), rewire and a kitchen as it had the most basic of kitchen facilities.

Our current house was originally described as "fully refurbished" when it went on the market. By the time we bought it the external paint was peeling extensively where the PO had just slapped new over old with no prep. I think they'd also used flour and water in lieu of wood filler, lol!

If it were me I'd be going for the fixer upper - caveat being we've never bought anything else in eight house purchases - and would definitely take a builder round to look at any property I was seriously considering.

On the subject of roofs - a PO of our house actually sold the roof to pay for renovations :eek: (She had a lovely old stone roof replaced with slate).....

hazyjo

sustainabelle wrote: »

However the ones that need renovating just sit there for months not sold.

westernpromise wrote: »

And that's actually your opportunity, perhaps. They're not selling because people don't feel confident valuing the risk - what might you need to do that you aren't expecting?

I'd suggest it's because a lot of landlords/investors are buying rather than developers. Mediocre decor is often fine for renters, they aren't going to expect 'boutique hotel chic'. You may find a lot of your future neighbours actually rent rather than own.