to want to buy a cheaper house and renovate?

[OhTheConfusion]

DH and I are house hunting... this is ment to be fun :(

DH wants to buy somewhere pretty much ready to move into and has focused his search on this only as he sees it as the easiest way to move and we can re-decorate a little while down the line when the money is available.

I want to buy somewhere that costs less but needs a good pinch of modernisation. No extensions or anything required but would need new kitchen, bathroom, a few walls knocked down and a lot of plastering/decorating.

BOth houses are in the same street, roughly the same size and 'kerb appeal', but the one I like is a good bit cheaper.

AIBU to want to spend the spare money on making the cheaper home perfect for us rather than setteling for someone elses tastes etc just to save any hassle? The DH works away from home so it would be me and the DC's there for most of the work.

[urbanproserpine]

Also get the fullest survey possibe. Our survey missed 40k of work.

Suveyors can't lift carpets, take down wallpaper or see anything non-cosmetic. In our case damp behind the plasterboard and gloss-painted anaglypta wallpaper, and everything done by a lunatic (who lied during the survey and sale through his teeth)

One good thing you can do for free is get a roofer in to do a quote for the roof. Surveyors will not go on your roof, but roofers will, and they will tell you what needs doing.they are usually happy do do this even if you don't own the house (my roofer told me I should have got him on to do this). Similarly get a good electrician to come and tell you what needs to be done, as surveyors won't do this either. These tradespeople will do quotes free of charge, and are worth knowing..

[BlueSkySinking]

I'm with you.

[oscarwilde]

Take whatever quote you are given from a builder and double it, at least.

[OhTheConfusion]

Thanks for all the replies!

The £50k is available to do the work due to equity and savings, were currently renting after selling up and moving so it's sitting in the bank alongside the deposit. There is a 70k difference on the house prices, we would need to put £45k extra onto the deposit for the more expensive house to afford it.

I took the advice from here and viewed the house I love with a builder today, he thinks the walls that need removed and the wall that would need to be put in else where would come to roughly £4,200 including the work done by the structural engineer to pass the planning process. If this is the case then I really do want it even more!!!

We have instructed a survey on both properties for tomorrow afternoon... they did not find my request for buy one get the next survey half price suggestion funny . DH has agreed to sit down with the report and take it from there.

[oscarwilde]

One thing to bear in mind aside from the doer upper/buy it done arguments; is that if the houses have £50k in the difference as a valuation, the bank will only lend you a % of the value of the house. These days they will not lend you tons of money against future perceived value subject to work being carried out.
Therefore, you may find yourself approved for eg: a £350k mortgage on a £500k house at No21 but unable to get £350k for no22 if it is valued at £450k.
Do you actually have your estimated £50k in savings or equity to do the work that you want to do?

[Pendeen]

" would need new kitchen, bathroom, a few walls knocked down and a lot of plastering/decorating. "

That is quite a lot of work especially if the "... few walls knocked down... " are loadbearing.

Aks your surveyor for his advice on the practicalities before deciding.

I agree with the contributor who said that most of the TV renovation-type programmes vastly underplay the sheer hard work and frustrations in the name of good TV.

[cozietoesie]

All house purchasing - unless you've seen (in detail) the thing built from ground up - is a gamble. You don't know where structural and planning corners have been cut, where problems have been covered over cosmetically, where fingers have simply been crossed. And that applies to new and renovated houses as well as older ones.

You just have to get the best facts you can, to try your best to minimize the unknown, work out your options and PLAN. Buying a fixer upper may not be to everyone's taste or do-able with their family circumstances but buying a spankingly renovated or great new house may mean that money is so stretched that life becomes difficult (if not near intolerable) in other ways.

It's everyone's individual choice of battleground.

[Laquitar]

I think with the ready to move houses it is harder to negotiate the final price. The owners want to make their money back plus profit for painting the feauture wall!

I'm with you and i would prefer to do the house myself.

[MummytoMog]

We went for a ready to move into house. It has fallen apart around our ears. We are now looking at spending in excess of £70k to fix all the problems and make it liveable in. This is on top of the £10k we have already spent making it warm enough to live in with children. The cosmetic finish covered a complete fricking nightmare of no insulation, badly fitted windows, a lethal central heating system and a loft conversion which doesn't meet building regs. YAY.

[bubalou]

Haha - I completely know what you mean tiggytape

I'm not being ungrateful. We have a house bigger than we need. But we have exactly the opposite of what we need!!!!

We have a large 4 bedroom house with a conservatory, utility room and an extra room (games room) downstairs. I'm not bragging - I don't want them!!!!

There's only me, DH and DS aged 4. We don't even use 3 of the rooms in the house. It's just wasted.

What we don't have is a big garden which we would love as we bought the house before we got married and had DS. We also have a house that's not decorated / finished yet in the way I want - even after 5 1/2 years!!!!

The next house will have the big garden I want and no plastering / new kitchens / new bathrooms or holes in the roof that were missed on the survey!!!!!!!!

[LesleyPumpshaft]

tiggytape, I know just what you mean about hidden problems. DP did a bit of replastering and we discovered that the lintel above the living room window was made of wood, rotten and has a huge ant's nest in it! Tbh, we thought the sloping floor upstairs was because it was an old cottage. It turned out that the joists also needed to be replaced.

The worst thing is that all of it is expensive and you can end up spending thousands and the house looks no better than it did before. Meanwhile you've blown the money you had for the nice new worktop etc.

[CassandraApprentice]

We went for a house needing work - despite having a proper survey done several things were missed. We've ended up finding alot of problems that have taken longer and cost more to fix than expected.

I resent the amount of time and money it's already taken. Even with young DC we've done a lot but there is more left to do. It has been five years and we have at least another 18 months and then we want to put it on the market and move across counrty to where DH now works.

I also thought it could be fun doing the decorating - after years of renting but it hasn't been and I now know DH really dosen't like DIY despite what he said prio to buying. I've found it hard to get it down round the DC - and sick DC and workmen in turning off stuff and needing access is a nightmare.

I've also found depit family saying we can stop with them when it comes down to it they are not always happy or school gets in the way.

I do know people who've done it with big old victorian properties within five years- once pre DC and the house was lovely and once with small DC again lovely house but the debt and stress was huge and put the entire family under strain.

[bubalou]

I haven't read the replies but from someone that has been through this I would honestly say - go for the house that is ready.

Me & DH bought our house 5 1/2 years ago. It was a lot bigger inside then any other houses in our price bracket but needed modernising.

Easy we thought - chuck in a new kitchen and a bit of paint etc.

We are still working on it now - obviously it costs a fortune even doing it cheaply to do up a house.

We needed all the windows replaced, the conservatory and the utility room too = £20,000. New kitchen & utility room units which we finally got last year £15,000 and we are finally about to get our new bathroom this month - don't wanna know the cost.

In the meantime we have decorated some rooms but all ceilings needed skimming so it has been a slow process and has left me resenting the house and never really feeling at home.

Me & DH both look forward to moving into our 'dream home' in about 1-2 years and trust me - it will be a house that needs nothing other than paint!!!!

Good luck

[BettySwollocksandaCrustyRack]

YANBU at all but seriously, this house renovation lark is not as easy as all these tv shows make it out to be!!

It's a massive headache and can be from start to finish, even worse if you have to live in it whilst the work is being done.

My DH ( a builder) did this with our house thankfully before we had DS but I never ever want to do it again.

[Fishwife1949]

Why nit buy a cheaper house and stick a conservatory and a loft o much cheaper


And house the size we have now would cost about 500 thou but we brought a small house and put a conservatory and a loft for 27k

[LesleyPumpshaft]

On the good side, buying a fixer-upper allowed us to pay off our mortgage and we own the house outright. On the bad side, the renovations are still in progress!

[nellie02]

Also, it's worth bearing in mind things that won't change with renovations. E.g. does one have a south facing garden, less overlooked etc.

Personally, I'm with the buy for less and do up camp. Especially since the difference in mortgage would be greater because of interest...

[OhTheConfusion]

Will talk with DH tonight and suggest we have a survey done on both.

Both houses could be lived in. Both need decorated (but only the one I like needs plastered) and we would both want to put in a new kitchen and bathrooms to them overtime, but could only afford to do this now if we take the cheaper house. From the home report it seems the house I like would need a new boiler to make it more fuel efficient too.

I would just rather have a slightly smaller repayment each month and a house I love, decorated and fixed to suit our family for the sake of a few months work. Also I hate getting semi comfortable and then starting to rip out things wehn we have saved up again.

Also my parents live close by so we could eat with them or stay over when kitchen/bathroom being done, but could live in th house for the walls being moved etc.

[cozietoesie]

Well those stories are why you need a good surveyor.

Basically, OP, you really need to have the facts (real facts) at your fingertips before you decide. Your DH may not be keen in the abstract because he's probably imagining a future where he comes home from work and spends all of his spare time with a screwdriver or paintbrush in his hand. Not saying he should have no spare time input but it has to be planned as a proper project with timescales and responsibilities clearly agreed and adhered to.

[diddl]

What actually needs doing in each house?

Are either of them fit to move into?

I couldn´t have a bigger mortgage just for the sake of plastering a couple of walls & doing some painting.

But I think you need to be honest about what needs doing/what you would like doing/costs/how long you can/will wait.

[OhSoSimple]

Hmmm I have bought a fixer upper twice. Without children it was great. With children (second time) we had to gut the house. I won't do it again, it was horrendous not having a kitchen, no heating, no bathroom for even just a few days, floorboards up all over the place, replastering etc etc. I felt like I missed a year of my children's lives and I would never do something on that scale again.

We didn't have any choice though as it was one of only 3 houses for sale in the village.... and we couldn't afford the other 2.

[steben]

It really depends on the kind of people you are - me abs dh very nearly bought a fixer upper in hindsight it is the luckiest escape we ever had. We bought somewhere ready to move into and have only really needed to decorate 3 rooms and effort of doing that has nearly resulted in divorce several times. I dread to think what would have happened if we had had to got a place a s come home from busy jobs with DC and start sanding skirting boards

So if you have bags of energy, money and time/motivation go for it