In Need Of Modernisation - Buying

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We are thinking on offering on a house built about 1880 that needs updating, no survey yet but it does need a lot of work. It will need a rewire (hardly any sockets and current wiring is on the outside of the internal walls), it needs a new boiler (the radiators look ok), removal of gas fires, it needs all wallpaper removed, to be painted and all new carpets. Has anyone experience of doing up a similar place?

We live in a house that needed 'modernisation' and is about the same age as the house you are looking at. We rent the house form the person that 'modernised it' very badly and 5 years later the cracks (literally) are beginning to show.

The real danger with this kind of thing is that you can very easily massively underestimate the costs of renovation. On top of that there can be nasty hidden surprises. It is not something an amateur can tackle - especialy in an old building.

Be very realistic. Unfortunately, the owners of places like these often will not reduce the price enough to take account of the work that needs doing.

Good luck. Hope it works out for you though all the same.

We have done ours from v out of date. 250 year old with 70s modernisation!

It is a 3 bed terrace and we would need to use tradesmen as we have no experience or time. Good point about the cash, we were hoping to spend about 5k on initial works and do the rest slowly. I think that this house has huge potential but will probably be beyond us.

We had tradesmen for elec/gas/joinery & people to fit kitchen/ bathroom. Did most of demolition work & rebuilding Walls ourselves, think ours must have needed more than yours as we spent a long time on it and I took 6 m off work to do 'wtecking'
We also spent a LOT but this is supposed to be our forever house so have top end bathroom / kitchen etc

It sounds a good project - you are being realistic about using tradespeople rather than tackling it yourself with no experience. We've done it a few times - it is always hellish, tradesmen are f*ing unreliable and, even if you aren't doing any of the work yourself (and I usually end up doing a bit of it just to keep things moving) then you spend an awful lot of time chasing them, chasing orders, picking things up to avoid them leaving the site. But it is worth it because you (a) get to bring a wreck/crap house back to life (b) end up with the house you (subject to budget and structure) want (c) build up a lot of equity or at least protect what you have in a falling market.

The most important thing though is to pay the right price for the house in the first place so work out what the absolute budget can be for works, double it and then knock it off the asking price .
double it and aim to ha

The rennovations and improvements you need will also be affected by the VAT hike in January and this will add to the overall cost.

Like people say, expect it to take twice as long and cost twice as much.

i thnk 5k is extremely optimistic. but if you have the gumption, go for it.

I don't think 5k will be anywhere near enough tbh. Might just cover the rewiring, depending on what part of the country you are in. I would assume the whole of the central heating needs replacing so another 5k for that. If the walls are all wallpapered you can bed that the plaster will come off in lumps when you strip them so walls will need to be reskimmed.

We bought a similar house & have spent years renovating it. Luckily it was liveable in & we had enough money to get the big jobs done early on & did most of the decorating ourselves. It has been very satisfying doing it but there is always something to do.

Have you had a full structural survey done? How is the roof?

Sorry, didn't see the bit about #5,000 - when I said double the budget, I should have said quadruple it and put in new kitchens/bathrooms/flooring etc when you have money further down the line.

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This is the house (internally it looks better in the pictures than flesh, don't they always). Thanks for the advice, no survey as we are only thinking of an offer. The 5k would be for re-wiring and a boiler, the rest could be done slow time saving a couple of hundred a month. I don't think that we are going to have the resources (time, money) to do this. Shame as I really like the place.

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Hopefully that should work better.....

Well, as you say, it doesn't look too bad and KL not overly expensive area so you might be able to get a rewire on a small house and a new boiler for #5k (but it would be better to spend a bit more and get a good boiler, iyswim). Believe me, the places I have bought have been far, far worse than that. Haggle hard on the price and think for every #2k you save, that's another room paid for in terms of replastering, redecoration and new flooring.

Err well actually I disagree - this is a good price and as horrid as the bathroom and kitchen are it is liveable and not a priority, it might not be to your taste but serviceable... worth getting a quote for the boiler and to be honest a full structural survey is money well spent when a property is this old. You can shop around for a boiler and just have someone fit it and get them to flush the system to remove all the crap in the pipes.

It is a good price, what are the ceiling prices for other properties in this road - this is what you need to look at to see if it is a worthwhile investment. There is also room to extend in the long run too.... also check roof and pointing on chimney.

The house has been slowly dropping from 120K. A few years ago a well presented house would have gone for 130k in that area but times have changed. Yes, King's Lynn is a relatively deprived town and I have looked at 20+ houses and this is the best (IMO) in terms of space and area. I guess there is no rush I can't see prices going up (here) for a while. Maybe better off saving some money!

I really wouldn't discount doing up a house but I tend to agree that prices won't be going up and it looks a fairly typicaly Victorian terrace in a town that perhaps has quite a few so it doesn't have to be that house.

But, it looks to me as if it might be a probate property or maybe an ex-rental - either way, it's not one in which the owner is living there desperate to get a certain price in order to move on so there may be more room for negotiation still.

I would live in the hosue and not decorate untill I had the money to move the stairs sideways - that will open up the dinning room and lound into one and through into the kitchen giving a really big space. If you can fit in a shower room and loo into the back of bedroom three and make bedroom two an onsuit, leaving bedroom three smaller but at least a loo and shower upstaris

We did up a similar place, slightly bigger, in the 1990's, it cost about £14K doing most of the work ourselves, with very cheap fittings. That included central heating, sinking sockets but not rewiring, and plastering in about 50% of rooms, plus a cheap kitchen & bathroom. Took 3 years and that was pre-children! I guess you could double that cost if having builders do it in 2010, unless you manage every penny.

It is very satisfying to end up with a decent house in an area or of a size you wouldn't have afforded otherwise.

Difficult with the layout, have other similar houses you've viewed managed to improve it or is everyone resigned to downstairs bathrooms so no obstacle to a sale? You could ask estate agent for opinion.

more importantly... which footballer?

I would not buy that house. The market is plumetting and some lenders are giving £1 valuations on houses that need a lot of work. There was an article in the Sunday Times forcasting a slump.

Buying a house that needs work is riskier than buying a done up house. If you get into difficulties with a done up house it is a more liquid assett easier to sell and to rent out.

We modernised a terrace in 2000 and it cost a lot of money but we were a bit green.

If you want to buy it go for a really crazy offer. Also look at net house prices in that road and see what houses like this were selling for in the 90's to get an idea of value.

It is a buyers market, some buyers are offering 40% less than the asking price and you have a lot of power if you are first time buyer and chain free.
Good luck.

Doing up a house adds value to it. Buying a house in prestine condition with prices MAYBE falling means that you will definitely lose. I completely disagree and think that buying a house that requires work as long as you can live in it is the best thing to do in this market. I wouldn't touch a house thats been done up to the nines as it can only lose value as you live in it but maybe I just have feral children.

Firstly, the sunday times is NOT a good barometer of house prices. or anything much at all tbh.

You should consider the longevity of the property. I dont think this is a market to gamble in particularly if you have a tight budget. That said if this is your forever house then taking a 25 year view might change your perspective.

Be careful, lots of commentary on the web that we are on the verge of a house price crash. last month saw the biggest drop in prices for years.