Completing soon on house and having serious doubts

RAS

sara

I agree with Davesnave about the personal issues; can you, your partner and kids cope with living in a house that does not look like a TV commercial for a few years? And can you work as a team to actually make it into your home? That's way more important than money, as if you spend all the time regretting the move you'll have no time or energy to make the necessary changes.

Having moved twice into properties where a square pin socket in every room would have been a luxury, I'd make a few practical suggestions:

Ask very nicely if you can send someone round to do an electrical survey, making it absolutely plain that you will not be using the results to bargain the price down.  Ask the electrician to assess the current system and make plain that you only want an immediate re-wire if it is essential. That will enable you to work out your priorities and get a plan in place to sort them out immediately you take possession.

It may be that a new circuit board would allow you to install extra circuits for the high demand rooms like the kitchen and bathroom?
If you really do have only one socket in every room, at the very least you can get them replaced by double or triple sockets.
It may be that with a little imagination, it is possible to install extra sockets using wiring to extend the time before a full re-wire is needed? Perhaps drilling through the wall behind an existing socket or somewhere along the run between two sockets? Or running a cable down the wall of a room below to create a spur? 
If you are thinking about creating an ensuite and can piggy back on existing water and waste systems, get the cabling in place while you're at it.

And whilst they are at it, it may be possible to install an extra lighting junction in some rooms for downlights etc?

Make sure they check out the earthing as well. A few day's storage and budget hotel might enable you to get enough done, with cables for new showers, kitchen appliances etc in place before the floorboards have to go down again and you move in? That would allow you spend a bit making good and to think about sorting out the big spends on the kitchen and bathroom fairly early on.

Having said that, if you have £30k to spend, once the place is watertight and insulated and heated I'd suggest the rewire is high priority.

If you have to delay the re-wire, then don't spend a fortune on decorating immediately. In fact, if you have to spend most of your money on infrastructure, you'll need to be mean about decorating in the first instance. A pot or two of paint will refresh rooms. If you can re-use curtains or furniture, take them as your starting point. I suspect that the wifi is going to be the kids priority rather than complete refurbishment of their rooms anyway? As long as they have somewhere to sleep, study and store stuff, they'll survive. 

If you want somewhere picture perfect, then maybe this isn't the place for you. If you want a bigger home near your kids' school you can make it work, but it will be work.

sarachristie

We have not exchanged contracts yet.  Thanks for the electrical advice.  There is one lighting circuit, earth wires needed for water and hot water, one socket in each room, all lights on same breaker.  No we don’t want somewhere ‘picture perfect’ and I have explained to my children that their rooms will take a few months to do up after these jobs are done.  Yes wifi is very important 😑

Madmel

RAS and Davesnave both give excellent advice.  I am not sure how old your children are, but they are generally adaptable.  We moved to our current house when ours were 5 & 7.  We sorted out which bedroom each would have beforehand and on the day prioritised their rooms so they could sleep in their own beds.  We have honestly done hardly any decorating due to structural and other issues which have cropped up, along with not having lots of cash. But the benefits to the kids in terms of having a large garden and all the things we could do there offset that.  There still aren't enough plug sockets, our wifi is dire - the same as the rest of the hamlet - but the offspring now in their 20s/late teens can lay & light a wood fire, chop wood, make cider and are quite good at mopping up surface water ingress (caused by a hole in an outside wall we only discovered after 7 years here!)

Sometimes when I look at my still crappy too small kitchen, I feel fed up.  However, it's all mine and just because it has dated units doesn't mean I can't still create nutritious & delicious meals.   A house is the shell that you turn into a home by how you live in it. I wish you luck in your decision and hope that if you do carry on with the purchase, it brings you happiness.

sarachristie

Thanks for your honest reply.  Having no garden for my children growing up makes me feel bad at times but people say well it mustn’t have been that bad if you stayed for 24 years.  Our house is in a great location on a hill overlooking the city.  We stayed because we like living here and put up with the lack of space But lockdown provided us with a realisation it’s not now ideal (no garden to sit in when you needed it!) and we finally did it.  We are as others have said nervous of being out of our comfort zone but staying here will not solve those problems.  Doing it actually during covid was probably not the best time to finally be making that decision but nothing we can do about that.

Scotbot

sarachristie said:

You say I am buying it because that’s what I can afford but we can afford a lot more.  As mentioned, our problem with finding that house was they were too small for us hence why we went for this one and we are not moving more than 10 mins from where we live.  This house is the biggest one found in the area we want to live but it needs work.

You can only buy what is on the market and you have a small search area. This means either you
1. Buy the house you have offered on
2. sell your current house and rent whilst  you wait for a house in better condition to come up.
3. Stay put and wait for a house in better condition.

Problem with option 3 is that you will likely lose your buyer and since there are so few properties not be in a position to offer on the perfect house when it comes to market. So it is 1 or 2 or you just stay where you are. Financially option 2 is potentially  riskier as prices may continue to go up whilst you wait. Both involve hassle living in a less than perfect house for 6 months or so. You aren't going to get a perfect solution accepting that is the hard part then the decision will be easier

sarachristie

Renting renting is not an option as we can’t afford to and would be x2 our current mortgage

Irishpearce26

Hmmm this is tricky. If this is how stressed an anxious you are before you have even exchanged then how do you feel you will be with all the work, setbacks, added expense, lost time with family, potential negative equity if you want to offload the house early. Sometimes its best to remove the emotion from buying a house and use your head, crunch the numbers, time, affect on family life etc. I hope whichever you decide to do you and your family get the best. Good Luck 

Danny30

I bought a house last year for myself,my wife and two Young ones. After having always rented we were looking to buy but we were only  considering a specific area and with a set budget.
We finally found something that was in the right location but was in need of a full renovation. Our budget to do it up was a bit less then yours and we are based in London so things here are that much more expensive.

We decided that we were sick of renting and went for the house in the end. I don't think we'll would have got anything decent and done up for our budget though.
We prioritised a full rewire, plastering and a new but small kitchen as these are things preferable to do before moving in as they cause alot of dust and uphieval.

I have had to learn to become a bit handier as money is tight so I have done a lot of the decorating myself. We didn't even have basic things like curtains in any of the rooms so we bought cheap one's and I installed them.

It was quite stressful whilst getting the work done and work came out over budget as well.
Moving on a year and we are now settled and happy with the move and the place looks so different. There are still thing's that need to be done but they can wait untill we can afford them in the future.

Nerves is normal I think when something is different to what you are used to but I think you should go for it.
We still keep an eye out at houses and a year on nothing else suitable has come up. Imagine if we would have panicked and not taken the House. I don't even want to think about it.

Rudi1990

I’ve just bought my first house after renting for years, I’m a single mum, affordability was limited due to only one income so my options were: buy a doer upper in the area I currently live in and love, or move outside the area slightly and get an up to date house.
i chose to buy a house in my area, it’s perfectly livable and I’m looking forward to getting each room done, bit by bit, to my own taste 😁 look at the positives - it will be worth so much more once you have done the work and you can have it exactly as you want it - as long as the kids are fed and have internet access and a garden to play in, they won’t care less! I’ve got my daughter involved in planning colour schemes etc and have promised to decorate her new bedroom how she wants it 😊

Crashy_Time

sarachristie said:

Thanks for your honest reply.  Having no garden for my children growing up makes me feel bad at times but people say well it mustn’t have been that bad if you stayed for 24 years.  Our house is in a great location on a hill overlooking the city.  We stayed because we like living here and put up with the lack of space But lockdown provided us with a realisation it’s not now ideal (no garden to sit in when you needed it!) and we finally did it.  We are as others have said nervous of being out of our comfort zone but staying here will not solve those problems.  Doing it actually during covid was probably not the best time to finally be making that decision but nothing we can do about that.

When lockdown ends though you won`t need a garden?