To buy a renovation project?

[torenoornottoreno]

I am looking for your advice on whether this is a good idea or bad idea, especially from those with experience.

The houses I’ve seen with gorgeous things in them are always done in renovations, where the person has got to put their stamp on it. I also think this is the best way to make money!

We live in a very desirable and expensive area in SE. We currently live in a lovely 3 bed semi, it’s just DH and me - we hope to have kids in a year or two. Our home was renovated by the previous owners and sold to us, they broke even and we have made a small fortune because of the pandemic etc.

We want to move for a number of reasons. We want a detached, bigger garden and a driveway. But that’s gold dust in our very small area (there’s cheaper in another part of town but we want to stay in the desired area). We’d be looking towards £1m at least for this.

A house has come on the market for £850k. It’s a 5 bed detached, lovely road, everything we want, perfect area. However; it is a family home where the children are probably in their 30s, mum has passed so dad needs to sell. They’ve not decorated it since 70s. But it’s well kept.

We’d want to knock down some walls to make it open plan for the kitchen area. The rest we would probably just slowly paint, redesign. The expensive areas would be kitchen + structural work and bathroom. Everything else is superficial. It’s entirely liveable.

Would you do this? We could currently afford the deposit, SDLT and fees with the equity in our house currently. But we wouldn’t have much for the renovation yet. We are approved for a mortgage on a house up to £1m so that’s not an issue.

Would you do it? I feel like it’s our only chance to get a house of this size!

YABU - bad idea
YANBU - do it

i would check school catchments but i don't see why not

You are earning around 200k & have at least 250k equity so I'm not sure why you think it's a bad idea.

Definately! Sounds like the edwardian house we bought back in 94 which was in good structural condition but very dated. We renovated over the next 10 years as and when we could afford to.

Surely you can renovate now though as you can borrow much more than you need

We've just done the same (albeit in the West Midlands so not as pricey!). Our house is currently having walls knocked through and hope to be moved back in by May.

All I'd say is make sure you know what you want to do and get quotes. We were very naive entering this house and underestimated all the costs. We have a budget but we're about to go over and we've not even go the quote for the kitchen yet so make sure you budget then add some!

We would have no where else to really go so would need to live through the renovations.

Bad idea isn’t just financially, it’s mentally. I’ve heard it can break some couples. We couldn’t do much work ourselves except painting as we are useless and work full time.

Also we’d be thinking of having a baby during the renovation… I’m not sure how long a knockdown wall and redesign of a kitchen takes??

Can't see why it's a bad idea really. As long as the house is good on a survey, buy it.

We live buy some amazing schools and would remain in the catchment, it’s just 2 mins from where we currently live.

@dorkfink

Surely you can renovate now though as you can borrow much more than you need

Will they let them do that though? I thought it was to the value of the house.

It would take about 6 months and cost about 150k. Do you both work full time? Reno projects are very time consuming and it’s pretty tricky to work from home with the noise. Who would be project managing it? Is that person’s work pretty flexible? Is there somewhere where they can plumb in a temporary sink for a temp kitchen?

I would go for it - could be an amazing opportunity

Allow about 3 months for the main kitchen knock down and refit - but you might find you have to book people months in advance so prioritise that

If it's a big property - you can set up another room as a temp kitchen anyway - microwave, small fridge, belling hob etc.

The location and plot are far more important. I'm excited for you!

@Wnikat ouch that’s so much, really is it that expensive 😭

We’d take our time. Only the kitchen and bathroom cause me upset! I work from home and would be able to survive with a microwave and my mum cooking me meals. DH could survive from an air fryer (he always does anyway!)

It’s the children side. We’d have to save though to afford it all.

I could deal with wfh upstairs with building downstairs but we have dogs so could be problematic.

My parents live nearby so we could stay there a bit but would want to avoid it as much as possible

@jackstini ahhh thank you! It’s so exciting. I don’t want to get ahead of myself as we haven’t offered and it’s new to market. We are viewing again Saturday

It’s character building! We’ve done it 3 times with dogs and babies but we work well together. If you have any relationship kinks, work through them before house project, and indeed babies.

Embrace the chaos and focus on the end goal. Be kind to each other and go for it!

Living in a building site would do my head in and I definitely wouldn’t even think about having a baby until the kitchen was finished. I think it’s a lot of people’s dream and if your tolerance of mess, dust, noise and upheaval is up to it, go for it.

I wouldn't be pregnant have a baby at the same time personally. very stressful

We have been slowly doing ours. Nearly 4 years in it’s almost done.
But full rewire with 7 month old last year, and now kitchen full dust bomb renovations ( wall down, piping and electric moved, concrete cut) with now almost 2 year old is a nightmare. Everything has to be moved constantly, dust, the noise.

Ds has just learnt to nap in cot, and now back to square 1 as it’s on pram outside only due to pneumatic drilling daily. Our kitchen won’t be finished until mid April

If the house hasn’t been touched since the 70’s have you checked that it has an up to date efficient heating system, what about electrics? insulation etc You need to get the basics right before you even think about new kitchens, People always assume that a dated house is well kept until they start knocking down walls etc and it opens a whole can of worms, the knock on effect of ‘just’ putting in a new bathroom and kitchen can be huge.

I've done similar four times.

No regrets.

Personally I much prefer to buy something I can renovate exactly how I want rather than pay a premium for somebody else's taste.

That said it's not easy.

There's a lot to organise/manage and you need to approach it in a structured way - for example no point doing the downstairs first if you're going to have major works like a loft conversation upstairs and a plethora of trades streaming through the house plus all the building dust etc.

Upshot is you need to decide what the vision is for the house in it's entirety and then break the works down in to separate sun projects.

Get all structural work done first - walls/wiring/roof/new boiler/windows etc.

Don't fall into the trap of doing it room by room, it will cost more and get it wrong you risk undoing some of the work you've done.

It can be worth hiring a project manager, not for the whole works but to get expert advice on the project plan itself and the best order to attack all the works.

Finally, budget......

Everyone underestimated the cost. This is especially true in period properties where layouts, room sizes, door and window apertures are not standard. Get used to the word bespoke and don't budget on "standard" prices.

As a period property veteran my rule of thumb is cost it up with serval quotes and then double it. Seriously. Double it. None of this 20% contingency business.

The worst outcome is living in an unfinished house for years and years constantly saving for the next project and having to do the work inefficiency as a result (in respect of time and money) or having to make huge compromises about quality of fittings or structural work that you'll come to regret.

Last point - is it listed? If so then that's an additional complicating factor that will add further cost and stress. I definitely wouldn't recommend taking on a listed property as a first renovation project.

Sorry from the typos. On my phone and getting distracted by children!

As a period property veteran my rule of thumb is cost it up with serval quotes and then double it. Seriously. Double it. None of this 20% contingency business.

I agree. You want to end up with the house of you dreams, no compromise, otherwise why go through all the pain.

@Wnikat

It would take about 6 months and cost about 150k. Do you both work full time? Reno projects are very time consuming and it’s pretty tricky to work from home with the noise. Who would be project managing it? Is that person’s work pretty flexible? Is there somewhere where they can plumb in a temporary sink for a temp kitchen?

All of this, plus

Do you know anything about building work or have available family members who do?

If you’ve never done any building work before then you could easily end up with a very stressful and expensive experience.

You’d probably want to get an independent project manager as this will save you from getting fleeced or going horribly over budget/time.

Also, it will take longer than 6 months.

@BreadInCaptivity this is helpful thank you.

I am going to check all wiring / heating etc on Saturday. It’s not listed and the only structural work is to make the kitchen open plan, I’d need an architect to view regarding the load bearing walls etc

My idea was that the kitchen would be done before I gave birth (or even got pregnant) then any other work is just small amounts. Windows etc look good and it has been upkept. It’s more the taste that’s 70s.

We did it. Pre kids. I wouldn’t do it nowadays!

It’s a pain in the arse, will cost way more than you think, will take way longer than you think, you will cry and wish you’d never done it. But it’s so worth it in the end, we did it on a little two up two down which was all we could afford at the time, we sold it for 75% more than we’d bought it for 5 years later which gave us the equity for the house we live in now, which makes me smile every day.

Would throughly recommend it as long as you have 1) a strong relationship 2) nerves of steel 3) patience and a 4) a full structural survey!

Yes do it.

We have done same. Bought 5 bed for a lesser price. Slowly doing it up. Twos years in It's hard but will be worth it. I intend to live in it and enjoy it tho. No way I'm selling on after my hard work sweat and tears.

You have to be willing to multitask. Give up many many weekends and juggle tradesmen which is difficult now as they are in high demand. It's like another full time job.

We have teens. No way I'd do it with little kids. No kids is ideal.

Good luck.