How risky do you think this is?

GDB2222

I agree that it sounds like a money pit, but also rather a special place to live. It depends whether you are willing to work more hours and give up other stuff in order to pay for the house. 

MobileSaver

GDB2222 said:

I agree that it sounds like a money pit, but also rather a special place to live. It depends whether you are willing to work more hours and give up other stuff in order to pay for the house. 

^ This.

Are you buying a pile of bricks that will give you the most cost-effective way of having a roof over your head or a special home that will make you smile every single morning you open your curtains.

Everyone is different and only you know where your priorities lie. For me, it's a no brainer and as long as you can comfortably afford the heating bills then the special home would win every time. (If you are currently excluding rental income and are only working 2 days a week then it does sound like you could easily afford the bills if you had to.)

SugarDatesAndPistachios

RAS said:

Secondary glazing is surprisingly effective. As are good lined curtains drawn at dusk and draught excluders. That'll keep the house 5 degrees warmer.

And invest in hot water bottles.

But I'd argue that the main issues are:

Household size?
Number of bedrooms?
Travel to work/schools?
Working from home/internet speed?

You really don't need more than one guest room and one bedroom per person, less if kids share.

Thanks for your comment. The secondary glazing, I think, must do something but it is a bit ugly, seems to have left a foggy sheen across them, but maybe that’s because the Owner has left and they’ve not been cleaned! There are very, large hefty curtains in most of the rooms, which look very expensive 😫 (I think the owner would leave these though).  The household size is perfect for what we want. The ceilings however are daunting. I think the cleaner would need a stepladder?? 

And the owner had fibre especially connected to the property, so that’s good! And it’s in a perfect location for school and work! 

It’s really beautiful, but like many beautiful things… it could be deadly (expensive) 

SugarDatesAndPistachios

Keep trying to reply with quoted comments but disappears into the ether… test! 

SugarDatesAndPistachios

Won’t quote replies as the computer says no when I try to post the reply!

Thats good to know that some planning officers may be amenable to window changes. It wouldn’t be something we could afford straight away anyway! Interesting to note that current owner was no friend to the planner and changed things without permission. Was sticking point as to why first buyer pulled out ( would not get retrospective or drop price in compromise). 

Yes it definitely would swallow money whether that would be into what we thought was a terrible pit or magical castle, that’s what we have to decide.

I’m glad no one thinks the numbers are crazy. And yes I am lucky to be able to increase the scope of my work easily, whether I want to is another thing! The children are only tiny at the moment. When they’re both at school, I’ll probably want to work more anyway! 

And yes, it’s very special. Both of us love old houses and admire old buildings. This is silly but when we went to see it last summer, we put an offer in - promptly rejected - and then forgot about it. Aside from wondering who had ‘won it’ (150k under asking price) I didn’t think of it, until I had a dream that the agent called us to tell it was back on that market. 48 hours later in real life, the agent did get in touch to say just that! 

It’s actually had 2 fallen through sales (the first as mentioned and the second / cash buyer who didn’t actually have the cash!). 

We’ve always offered less than the picked offers, knowing it needs work and has issues with planning.  We can’t go over that sadly and unlikely to be able with mortgage rates rising. That was almost a year ago and if they’d gone with us, I’m sure they would have made up the difference by now. 

RAS

SugarDatesAndPistachios said:

There are very, large hefty curtains in most of the rooms, which look very expensive 😫 (I think the owner would leave these though).  The household size is perfect for what we want. The ceilings however are daunting. I think the cleaner would need a stepladder?? 

Budget to get them dry cleaned and decorate around them if you can retain them. Costs a lot less than new curtains

theoretica

SugarDatesAndPistachios said:

 Interesting to note that current owner was no friend to the planner and changed things without permission.

Which raises the question of what quality of work was done and appropriate materials.  An old house will, obviously, have had very variable heating regimes during its lifetime and the building may well be happy with temperatures that the modern inhabitants may prefer not to experience, so long as it can breath where it needs to etc.

FreeBear

SugarDatesAndPistachios said: Interesting to note that current owner was no friend to the planner and changed things without permission. Was sticking point as to why first buyer pulled out ( would not get retrospective or drop price in compromise).

You need to tread carefully - If the current owner has done "stuff" that the conservation officer doesn't like and you do end up buying, any costs resulting from an enforcement notice would fall on you. Might pay to have a friendly chat with the CO before investing too much time/money in this property.

BigH1979

Sounds like you’ve fallen in love with it and the second chance means it must be ordained 😇.  Go for it or you’ll always regret it. Its a 1% from me.

SugarDatesAndPistachios

Yeah you know, the owner basically had a garage type extension added on to act as a playroom and you can see a few Velux windows in the attic part. Can’t imagine velux is in keeping with the property but you only notice it from the  back. The first buyers wanted to see planning permission for this but it wasn’t available. When you look up the property online, the extension is mentioned in the grade 2 listing info page, so it must be known about.

Well, we shall see. We can’t match the newest offer on the table, we’ve always been waiting in the wings. Apparently this offer is thought to be genuine but again it’s been a few weeks and nothing has happened - no proof of funds so still ‘available’ on RM!  Thanks for everyone’s help!

If anyone is super interested, drop me a message and I’ll send you a link so you can be nosy! Pretty sure the current bidders will end up taking it, but now I know if it falls through and the owner finally gets fed up of time wasters, we will definitely offer again!