Shitty homes

[madcatladyforever]

AIBU to think that if you have bought a huge investment i.e a house you should take take care of it?
I've moved 300 miles from home with work and I'm renting a bedsit while I look for a house to buy.
Every single one I've looked at is a shit hole. Dirty, not decorated in years, a mess and overgrown garden. I feel so despondent.
I don't want to buy a house I'm going to have to do tons of work on and start from scratch in the garden
My own house was modest but it was nicely painted by me, the garden with a bit of hard work was lovely and it sold in 2 weeks after going on the market. The buyers said it was the nicest house in the price range.
I really don't want to buy some shit hole and spend the next 5 years doing it up and having to deep clean it at my age.
Houses here are much cheaper but just so run down and dirty.
If you had an expensive investment would you not want to maintain and look after it inside and out? I just cannot understand the mentality.
I had a look at what should have been a lovely bungalow today in an area of oupstanding natural beauty owned by a sinice bloke and it would have taken several big skips to remove all the crap from the house and Garden before even starting to refurbish and he wanted top dollar for it.

There is a difference between not having a bespoke kitchen and being filthy.
Surely most people have a tidy up before viewers arrive.

@OtraCosaMariposa both of those houses are lovely! But the number of rooms would swing it for me.

I’m originally from nearby you. In the much posher area of drumchapel though

Sounds like champagne taste and lemonade money

It’s not about how people keep their houses, it’s not having a bit of a clean and a tidy up (unless there are reasons you can’t) before selling your house and showing people round it.

You get what you pay for. If you are looking at shitholes it’s because you are willing to pay shithole prices. Up your budget and you will see better properties.

You also appear to live in a financial bubble. Not everyone can afford £40/£50 to buy enough white paint to give a sitting room two coats and many people can’t afford to run a car so trips to the dump aren’t possible.

I've owned my flat for 18 years

it's clean, but I have only repainted a couple of times and certainly won't replace anything that works.

if it was on the market it would be sparkling clean and clutter free, but that's it. If someone is selling after a long time they will be making a massive profit anyway probably.

it's hard to tell what people meant these days by "maintenance". I'm sure some people think my old kitchen "needs" replacing but that's not maintenance.

What I would do is buy the right house and pay for deep cleaning and skips and painting.

U get what you pay for. Bear in mind most cheaper houses will be small and in not so nice areas or near to council flats or estates.more expensive houses will be bigger and nicer and in better areas. That’s how it goes.

I live in a doer upper property -1950s
It was on the market for over a year, because nobody wanted it
The previous owners were elderly
If we complete all the renovations, it would be worth considerably more.
We are renovating slowly
We have added modern heating, the rest will be done over time
Needs all new inside

You get what you pay for
It's livable
The kitchen & bathroom function, they are just unfashionable colours & old

It's our home

It was the previous owners home

If you’re not buying houses because they need a clean and have rubbish behind the shed, you’re the one with the problem. Entirely cosmetic issues that are easily rectified. If all houses in your budget are like this, then you’ll have to roll your sleeves up.

A friend of mine who worked at an estate agent once told me what his boss said to him

"Smelly people buy smelly houses"

That's the market currently, OP. You have to outbid other potential buyers for the priviledge of neglected BTLs where 5 years down the line after all the work you've done and retching from removing filthy carpets and throwing away old bedroom cupboards definitely not wardrobes!) you haven't started to touch the kitchen and its most despicably rotten cupboards. Rents stay as high as they are as people rent rooms as they can't afford the house or get topped up with HB so the landlord gets their mortgage paid anyway.

If you buy a doer upper, you can do it up to your taste
There is also the potential to improve & then move, if you have time & effort to do some DIY

Decorating your house before selling makes it sell quicker but for not a lot more money. In a good market it makes no difference.

I found this when looking at an area in demand. If you find a less popular area the quality seems to go right up. I went for the crappier postcode and walked into a lovely fresh looked after 3 bed terrace. In my first choice (and second choice tbh,) postcode areas, in my budget I'd only ever seen ex-student horrors/granny's delapidated overgrown sad houses or unsound houses (knocking out fireplaces or walls inexpertly etc).

Otherwise upping your budget is the only other way to swerve the shite unfortunately.

Try to focus on potential though. If you tackle deco and repair/improvement early on you can get a lot more done as opposed to when all your stuffs in and settled.

There is a difference between not having a bespoke kitchen and being filthy. There is. And from the general tone of OPs posts, I suspect she is seeing the former and describing it as the latter.

Bear in mind most cheaper houses will be small and in not so nice areas or near to council flats or estates.more expensive houses will be bigger and nicer and in better areas. That's conflating two issues. Both being large and being in a more sought out area will increase prices. But there are large houses in cheaper areas and small houses in "better" areas. If you're buying the house as an investment, go for the better area for ease of resale. But if you want to live there for a long while you may prefer a 5 bed with a huge garden in a cheaper area to a 4 bed on a cramped plot in a nicer area.

YANBU for having a rant. YABU (and ridiculous) to expect that all houses will be presented in picture perfect condition.
If you’re targeting bungalows, it must be obvious that most people only leave them after many years of declining health or death, so they may not be pristine. And relatives may be overwhelmed dealing with the situation.
Your stance is fairly typical in that you think a house should cost what you are prepared to pay for it. If all the houses you see are filthy and “top dollar” (assuming that they are selling) then you need to manage your expectations downwards and find a tiny pristine house in a worse area.
And YAABU for moving 300 miles before finding out that houses are more expensive than you were expecting - that’s what we have Rightmove for.

If you want a perfect house you’ll have to pay more , it’s not rocket science ...but think for a moment- would you really be happy with someone else’s taste ? Wouldn’t you be changing things anyway? You seem to imply that the houses you’ve seen are being sold at the same prices as similar houses in better condition - this doesn’t happen in the housing market. When viewing a house, learn to look beyond the untidiness and peeling paintwork and use your imagination.

Example
I refurbished inside of property, painted every room ceiling to floor & cleaned
Carpets wet vaccd
Brand new flooring in one room
All rubbish removed from garden & tidied
Was spotless, moved out

Before tenants moved in one month later
Letting agency asked if I wanted to pay for a clean

Absolutely not !