What would you do? Does this sound manageable?

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Fallen in love with a property which is over budget, quite a bit over budget! I need to work out if this is possible or if I need to be more realistic.

For context, the house is a doer upper, it will need a new kitchen, both bathrooms will need to be replaced and things like flooring which are 30+ year old carpets (even in the kitchen and bathrooms). The property is 200sqm. Windows are another big expense as they definitely need doing.

Take home pay is around £4500pcm but should go up to £5000-5500pcm in the next 12 months.

House has been on the market with no offers for 5 months so I’m hoping to put a cheeky offer in and if accepted, the mortgage would be £1300-1500. Bills would be unknown but CT is also extortionate.

Does this sound doable or do I need to find something smaller/ less expensive?

It would be the time and effort that put me off more than the money side.

Committing to DIY refurb on top of a big job sounds crazy to me. I'd want to relax and do nice things when not at work not plan, source and install kitchens etc.

Also, it sounds like you're single and child free, therefore do you need a bigger home?

Not enough info on your budget, but you don’t have to reveal everything here for the slavering hordes (like me).

I’m not clear exactly why this house is so desirable to you - bigger, better area, shorter commute? What will you gain? Do you have any savings left over that you can put towards the big jobs? Any chance you could think about something like solar panels and a battery to get those utility costs down?

The state of the house doesn’t sound that bad to me. If you’ve done this before and you know what it takes, that’s good. At 30, you should still have the energy. If the survey is ok and there’s no obvious things like a new development planned across the road, I’d probably go for it.

Do you have advanced DIY skills? So could you plumb and tile and do electrics?

I don’t think the mortgage is the issue here, it’s the renovation budget.

If you just love it and happy to live in a building site for a protracted amount of time, then why not? 200 m2 is a big house for one person. Would you rent a bedroom or two to lodgers? Personally I’d rather buy a smaller house and do it exactly to my taste and specification than a larger one I’d have to do on a budget. The cost of basically everything is far higher than it was 10 years ago

Bigger, detached, much larger garden (I have dogs) and I have an allotment so having a bigger garden would allow me to have my own, and it’s a nicer area. There is also room for a home gym which doesn’t sound like a “need” but it would cut down my travelling and costs by quite a bit.

I also think I’m just ready for my next project. I like to keep busy and my current home is fully renovated now and has been for a while.

Yes, I renovated my current house which hadn’t been lived in for 10 years so was much much worse!

It sounds like you can afford the mortgage, would be happy to live in a construction site, and are young enough to enjoy the renovated property for a long time so it sounds reasonable to me. I’d just make sure you have some sort of emergency fund buffer in case something unexpected goes wrong that you couldn’t do yourself.

I could do but the idea is to have more room for my dogs/ hobbies and the rooms would be really handy for family to stay when they come to visit. My current house is smaller and almost mortgage free but it’s fully renovated and I’m getting itchy feet.

I’m just ready for a challenge again - it would be much less work than the current one but does need modernising and just generally bringing up to current standards. It will need loads of storage added too.

I have a doer upper the same size as this. Gas and electric averages £300 per month. We put £2800 in the bills account each month (inc food and pet food). Do you know if it needs a re wire?

The mortgage payment wouldn’t worry me (ours is quite a bit more with a similar income) but the work involved in the house would. We knew we we’re stretching our budget so went with a new build giving us time to build our reserves up again before the big bills start coming in.

I would do it because the benefits outweigh the risks. You can always put a second hand or cheap kitchen in whilst you settle in and work out a plan.

You can afford it, you already have experience, you can shift mortagages around nowadays.

The % mortgage and bills sounds normal to me. Offer your lowest amount. Not what you think they will accept. Tell the estate agent you love it and its x . Then negoiate quickly. Dont dither!

The more you post the more I think you should do it. Sounds lovely.

Just banging the drum again for a solar array and battery. We moved into a house that the previous owner spent £300pm on utilities for and we spend £200 a month max in winter and basically nothing in the summer.

Possibly slightly different if you have done it before. Your first post made it sound more like you were a first time buyer.

I need to have a closer look but I wouldn’t say it needs a total rewire based on what I saw, it will definitely need upgrading and depending on what I want, it might be easier to completely rewire. My brother would do the electrics for me so I’m not concerned about the cost of a rewire. The mess is never ideal!

Definitely something to look into. Do you mind me asking how much your set up was and how you went about it? I’ve already looked at underfloor heating and an air source heat pump.

Ah, yes, definitely not a FTB.

That seems like a normal mortgage amount these days

It was a lot. We went with an installer who had rave reviews from people we knew rather than shop around. Whole system and installation was 18k 2 years ago. We must be saving about £2k a year on utilities but we also charge 2 EVs off that so we no longer have much in the way of additional fuel bills either (a few public charges through the year).

An induction hob has been a surprisingly noticeable drop in gas costs too, for a very small outlay.

I say go for it!
We did this over 10 years ago. We had two incomes but lived in our old house whilst we renovated the new one so had two mortgages etc to pay. The first few years were tight but it's all good now. We learnt so much from doing it and wished we had gone bigger! I love a project!

I'm pretty risk averse. Ours is <1/6 with 12 years left. We are a couple so have some flex there. You're more brave than me.

Seems fine to me, your take home pay is really high so you will have a lot of disposable income. Go for it I say, you only live once.

How old are you? Thats probably playing into it to some degree. I’m almost mortgage free but at 30, it feels too young to settle!

I would at your age. I'm almost 60 and bought with a 95pc mortgage over 20 years in December. £3000 pcm for a doee upper, it would have been easier 25 years ago

I'm 34 and quite happy to settle and spend the money on experiences instead tbh but we are all different. Do you have a good fallback option if interest rates rise/you lose your job?

If you've done it before that lowers the risk a lot. The biggest challenge I found renovating recently is prices have gone up a lot in the last few years. I budgeted a few things based on previous costs plus a bit but they'd more than doubled.