Would you buy a house if it took you a while to save to get it sorted to your standard?

[chickenriceorspud]

If I can ask your advice please? Would you buy a house if it was in your perfect location for schools and close to parents etc in a lovely area but would likely take a few years to get it how you want it?

My dp seems to think you only buy either a house that's ready in showroom condition or one that you can afford to and have the cash ready to get started on anything you wish to do. I on the other hand think it takes time to get any house the way you want it.

Yes definitely we plan to do this, but not a house that needs major structural repairs.

I have bought twice, both needing full cosmetic redo, including kitchen and bathroom. It made sense to me to be able to get the style I want and a cheaper price to begin with. 12 years on with my house and it is still not finished, but things also are starting to need doing again! It was planned on being a 5 year project, but young children came along and that meant less time and money. I would do it again, but think very carefully about costs, as many things have easily doubled from a few years ago.

Definitely. Location is the most important thing. And depends on your budget, if you need to save up to do the renovation, then you need the house to be at least habitable. Dated but safe kind of house. However, I know people who buy one and then spend the next 6 months totally renovating it before moving in. I assume they take a bigger mortage to cover the cost.

I would add that the current house we are in, we have to redo the kitchen, all the bathrooms and the garden. We have also bought it with plan to extend. We are now 9 years in and all is done, except replacing the conservatory.

There is a world in between a shit hole that needs ripping apart and rebuilding, and somewhere that needs a bit of a freshen up and adjusting to personal taste, that can be done within weeks, or lived with until it is done.

I would go with worst house on best street, every time. Location is everything, as even if you think it is perfect when you move in, your needs change with time. What was our playroom is now another bedroom. Playroom was more of a corridor than a room. Made sense when they were little. What was a small bedroom is now a second study. Kids have grown, husband and I now both WFH but cannot share space for confidentiality. Etc.

I'd not want to move into a showroom ready house because I'd be paying a premium for someone else's bland decor choices and I'd want to decorate and make changes anyway. Nothing wrong with neutrals by the way, but all the houses I viewed that were going for showroom move in appeal were quite identikit and boring.

I'd not move in somewhere with children that needed major structural work to make the property habitable and safe though.

New bathroom, kitchen, decorating, possibly a rewire, option to extend, garden to make my own? Definitely.

@chickenriceorspud new flooring and new kitchens are not hard at all. If you have the money, find someone to do it instead of DIY. We didn't DIY our kitchen or bathroom. I find a local company that does full kitchen or bathroom renovation. They come and take away the whole place and then fit all the units and tiles and floor. They arrange plumbers, electricians and tilers. We don't have time to DIY that. Just allow for about 3-4 weeks for a kitchen and 2 weeks for a bathroom. You didn't say how many bathrooms you got, but if you have more than one, it's quite easy to live with. If there is only one, you'll want that sorted out before you move in, or you need another place to stay while that happens.

There’s a happy medium here! Don’t buy one that is a total shit tip, but I wouldn’t wait until you have seen the perfect place in pristine condition - it may never come up. One with good bones that needs a bit of refreshing would be fine. The likelihood of the previous owners coincidentally decorating everything exactly to your taste is pretty low.

My dd did. And IMO the fact that the decor was terribly dated meant that a lot of other buyers were put off, so she and SiL were able to take advantage of the subsequent reduction. It was ideal in many ways - location etc. in a relatively expensive area - and if it had already been done up they wouldn’t have been able to afford it. And it would probably have sold very quickly, instead of hanging around on the market until they were looking to buy.

I would definitely buy a house for location and space over it looking perfect. As long as you can live in it comfortably because it doesn’t need major work, I think it is bonkers to buy a place that is well decorated over a place that has great bones and is well located for schools and family. An immaculate looking house also tends to be more expensive. And that also means finding someone with exactly the same taste as you which could take years.

Moreover, the best advice I was given about redoing a house was not to make any decisions until you have lived there for at least 6 months. You don’t know exactly how you are going to use the space until you are in there. So you might build your kitchen differently 6 months later. And you don’t know what the light is like over the course of the day in each room, which would change your choice of paint or wallpaper.

We bought a house that needed work (albeit liveable in from the off, if a little ugly) but is perfectly located for us and where we intend to live for the rest of our lives. We save up and decorate a couple of rooms each year. What I would have done without living here first is very different to what we have done as a result of living here - even down to using rooms differently to how we thought we would.

We are separately saving for a new kitchen but using the one we have is fine, and again what we now plan to do is very different from what we thought we’d do before moving in.

That’s what we have done. We were finally able to buy in our perfect location, amazing schools etc but haven’t got the money to do all the work yet as we had to max the budget to get here. It’s a full renovation job, we imagine it will take us 10+ years. Currently living with bare plaster etc

We have done kitchen, windows and doors and heating is this month. Then we will have to wait a few years to replace floors and decorate, do bathroom and the monumental mess that is the garden.

But it’s worth it. Houses in this village are like rocking horse poo and we wouldn’t move.

We did. Definitely couldn’t have afforded to buy what we ideally wanted at the time so we went for a doer upper. Totally renovated while we’ve lived here bit by bit over the years; it’s finally ‘finished’ (okay still a couple of minor and less invasive jobs which I want done but all the structural changes and big work is complete) and I absolutely love our house now. It’s almost perfect - we will move at some point because we’d like more outside land now that we’ve extended as much as we have. Do still have a nice big garden but we’d like more space out there.

4 years in and we are about 70% done!

This allowed us to buy somewhere amazing that we couldn't otherwise have afforded. It's worth it.

Most people repaint and change flooring even if it’s brand new.

So it’s literally just a new kitchen.

Unless he’s picking houses because he likes their carpet 😐😂

If your DP isn't on board to take on a renovation it will be 10 times harder as some people just haven't got it in them. I bought solely and renovated everything bar the kitchen, windows and garden (still all on the to do list) as I wanted to and had to motivation to do it.

If I'd have bought with my now ex we would still be on the first room

With the best will in the world, that's not a doer-upper! It's normal to want to redecorate/replace floors/update kitchens over time, let alone when you buy a new place.

Our current home needed a full rewire and heating installed before we could move in. When we moved there was no window into the kitchen (just a big boarded up hole in the wall) and we lived without a kitchen at all for the first 6 months. I turned off the water to one of the bathrooms as it had been leaking for so long I was concerned about the structural stability of the joists underneath it, and the other had no flooring or bath panel in there, just open framework and yuk. We managed; you do. 4 years later and we're just about to start the second to last round of work to finish everything internally, then the last round (next year) will be the exterior of the house and driveway.

My best advice is to get one or two rooms finished quickly so you can go to them, close the door and pretend the rest of the house isn't horrible. It's important to have that space otherwise the rest can really get you down.

We bought the worst house on the best street, according to Kirsty and Phil’s philosophy on Location, Location, Location. Been here for ten years and have slowly refurbished it, literally taken every wall back to brick and put back together again. We got it for a very good price in 2014, it’s now more than doubled in value and we’ve just got the kitchen and re model.

Living in your preferred area is really important. I won’t lie it can be stressful getting the tradesmen in, but it is so rewarding in the end.

As long as you are prepared to accept that it might take longer than you think to get it into tip top condition. Our house needs a lot of work and as we start one job it invariably leads to another job that we hadn't factored time or money into. My husband is good at DIY and I love the 'interior design' stuff but it can take its toll on you both, always nagging in the back of your mind that something needs doing! I would move to a new build tomorrow just to get away from it, doesn't bother DH at all. I've learnt to live with it but always joke with my husband that if he dies tomorrow the house will be on the market the next day!

Is your DP rubbish at DIY? Every house will need something doing to it (unless you're buying brand new). "Just a kitchen" is relatively straightforward!

I have some sympathy with people not wanting to live somewhere that’s either a mess, or not something they want, for a long period of time. If you don’t feel happy in your home space it’s a horrible feeling and while yes, you might get a lovely house eventually, there’s a lot to be said for enjoying it now, not “at some point”

I wouldn't buy somewhere that needs gutting, simply because we don't have the time or skills/knowledge to do it ourselves, and the stress of living in a building site would make life unpleasant.

But of course you buy somewhere that needs redecorating, maybe a new bathroom, new floors. Cosmetic or low-ish impact and cost works. That's normal. New kitchen I wouldn't fancy doing as it's so disruptive, but if you knew you could afford it and you could cope with the mess and noise then maybe.

I bought an old house that needed work.

That was the only thing I could afford in my favourite location (a lovely, quiet and safe small, commutable to London seaside town).

I could have gone for a better house but it would have had to be in slightly grottier other seaside towns.

Basically I prioritised location. I am 10 minutes from a lovely and supermarkets and there is a bus stop close by if I need to go further into town. I can walk to the seafront or just take a bus. The high street is lovely and people are incredibly friendly.

There were few new-built in that town and all were out of my price range.

I am going to lie it is not an easy choice: dealing with trades is expensive and tiring. I have done as much as I could myself (removed carpets, restored floors and stairs, did all the painting of walls and the kitchen cabinets/tiles, 90% of my furniture are charity shops finds).

Had to pay to rewire and get a new boiler in and fix some of the gutters & check that the drains were all working fine and fixed one tile.

I am now saving to make sure I have enough if the roof needs work in the future.

There are so many botched jobs in houses, even the ones that look 'done', that at least if you get a fixer-upper you can make sure that everything is done correctly and to your satisfaction.

I would if it was cosmetic but perhaps not if you needed to add extensions or knock through walls.

We've just moved into a Victorian wreck. It will take years. 3 at least. When I'm done with it it will be the nicest house around. We got it for more than 200k less than a done up similar, much smaller house on the same road sold for at the same time.

I'm doing it now! As long as the electrics and plumbing works and there is a serviceable kitchen and bathroom everything else can be done when you've got the money.

I did make a point of having the bedrooms exactly how I wanted them before we moved in so I can go to bed in bliss!

Despite all the work that needs doing here I am so happy.