Making an offer on a old house

Utterly Ridiculous.

What do you do with these houses once you've been involved in buying and renovated them, Bxboards?

Hands up who lives in a house that isn't listed with single glazing these days?!

What happens when the plaster falls off the wall when the wallpaper is removed? That is what 20 years of renovation experience tells me happens in any house approaching a century in age that hasn't already been replastered.

Nearly everything on that list is a bodge. A bodge until the inevitable happens and it all needs doing either because you've eeked the very last drop of life out of things that should have been replaced and enjoyed by the person buying the house (not the people after them) or whacked cheap rubbish in that won't even last five years. £500 on bathrooms, £600 on carpet, painting your own home white. Watch me drop my knickers at a £600 kitchen that looks like £4000. :rolleyes:

I appreciate that some lack the funds to pay for quality that lasts, but suggesting that vendors shouldn't drop their prices and that buyers should lump paying huge sums for houses that cost far more than their component parts to then put in the very cheapest of fittings to compensate is almost sickening. It sounds like what miserly landlords give to tenants. Because tenants don't deserve quality when the landlord's yields are at risk.

I haven't created the argument at all. I disagree with people who think that vendors don't need to pay for upgrades to single glazing and 30 year old bathrooms.

It was fabricated that the OP was after an unreasonable price drop and they came back and clarified that their OP said all it needed to say.

The answers given most recently are that that not a lot needs doing (to any house, apparently) and that the price of the house is already reasonable. All this without even a set of details. Who is fabricating what, exactly?

And then we get an amateur developer/bodger wading in for measure, promising kitchens that look like they cost £4k and who values workmanship at nothing. I lie. We've got a £150 budget for labour so far on this renovation. Well meaning, but ridiculous.

Forgive me for not talking generally. There was a real person with a genuine question. I don't disagree that prices are supposed to reflect work, but they often don't and in a very specific sense, the OP is not to be criticised for wanting to research properly.

This board loves to find the holes to pick. It sounds like an echo chamber at times. Buy all renovation and expect to only do kitchens, bathrooms and decor? Scoff that they're amateur. Ask about developing property? Scoff at the amateurish idea. Actually ask what might need doing to a house? Scoff at them trying to rip the vendor off. Suggest that a bathroom needs replacing? Scoff that it's fine as long as there isn't a tin bath hanging from the wall.

The best thing you can do when buying a project? Buy the worst house you can find. Far fewer surprises when you expect to do everything.

glasgowdan wrote: »

Doozer... you're definitely getting a different idea to most people here.

Fact is, and we're talking in general here, that two identical houses on the same street, one has modern fittings, and one has 30 year old fittings, are going to be on the market at DIFFERENT prices. The asking price reflects the level of finish in a house. But you know this and seem to be creating your own argument for some reason!

Agreed.

Value is in older houses that need work - if you have two houses, 1 at 70k and 1 at 100k, the 100k house will usually have the work done already. The 70k house will need / want stuff doing - so buy the 70k house, spend 5 or 10k on it, and turn it into a 100k house.

But these needs / wants are likely to be priced in, so is likely to be little scope for further reductions.