How much do you think this house would cost to do up, very roughly?

[Gincognito]

Here

Not to show home standard, just as a habitable family home.

It's just come to the market; it is quite a lot of money, it needs an injection of a substantial injection of cash to make it liveable.
Do you really think there will be people competing for it? A developer would want to sell it on at a profit - in this market. Dorking or no Dorking. A regular person would be wary of the finance and time/effort/disruption needed to get it up to scratch.
If you really love it, work out how much you would like/are able to offer, be cool, and have a go. Don't get into competition with any other third parties. Be prepared to walk away.

How much did the other (pretty much identical) house go for last year in Vincent Street? That's what you need to ask.

Get quotes for rewiring and central heating as they will vary depending on area. Don't get a builder to give you one quote for all the work unless it is a gutting job as it will cost you more. Get a quote for plumbing the bathroom and fitting a suite that you source yourself, and the same with the kitchen (ask the central heating guys how much for plumbing in a gas pipe and the plumber how much for water pipes for washer and sink.) Price up units from Ikea and ask joiners for a price for fitting (or use Ikeas service), have stand alone cooker fridge etc would keep cost down

Washer and tumble dryer could go in downstairs loo.

I would guess £20-30k but not done up any properties in London

We've rennovated houses - do separate the modernising costs from fitting costs - £20-25K to modernise all, then however much you want to spend on kitchen,bathroom, flooring etc.

watch out for dry rot due the age of the house. ours is victorian and as we have renovated loads of dry rot has been uncovered and we had a full survey done. Good luck with it as it looks like a lovely house!

Forgot to say, your mortgage provider would probably not release all the funds at once, so even if you were able to borrow £225K, they would probably only release £190 - £200K to start with. They would probably release the value of the house as it is now, and then as you do the improvement works, release further funds. This is so the value of the mortgage and the property are always roughly in step with each other. When we did our house up the mortgage lender withheld £60K which was released in sums of £20K as we had the building work done.

I would be worried that as well as the cosmetic and very obvious stuff (eg bathroom, kitchen, walls, flooring, clear garden) there would be a bunch of (probably expensive) stuff to do which wouldn't be obvious until you'd had the survey done. Such as damp work, repairs to the roof, re-wiring, replacing soffits and fascias, drainpipes, re-pointing brickwork, replacing or removing chimney stacks, woodworm etc etc etc. Has it got double glazing? Cavity wall insulation or loft insulation? All this stuff can really add up.

So you might estimate the cost of all the obvious work, buy the house, only to find that the owners have basically done no maintenance since the 1920s and you have a whole load of unglamorous but expensive maintenance work on the house before it's habitable /safe. Can you go round it with a builder who could try to spot those things too, to add to the things you can see?

We bought a house a couple of years ago which had been the family home of a couple for about the last 30 years and they'd done very little maintenance. The house isn't falling down, but I have a big list of these kind of unglamorous mini projects when I'd really rather be spending our surplus money on holidays, nice food etc etc!

And having done our kitchen and bathroom since we moved here, thinking "we'll go for something basic" I am still amazed about how much "basic" costs. And then you think "might as well do it nicely since we're staying here" and it costs even more.

Sorry to sound doom-and-gloom but of course you want to go into something like this with your eyes open!

I've been in a couple of houses with a similar floor plan and that tiny 3rd bedroom has been turned into a bathroom, and just need to accept that the DC will walk through the main bedroom to get to the bathroom.

I live about 5 minute drive away, in a house a little bit larger. It cost us:

Rewiring - £6,000
Replumbing - £8,200

New kitchen (Howdens installed) £8,000

Bathroom fittings you can get for around £1,000 - £2,000.

These were the costings for these particular jobs out of our larger job, so there might be a surcharge given that a builder would need to come in for a smaller job.

BUT - you would have a smaller house, so the plumbing and electrics should cost less.

For about £25,000 wouldn't give you a lot of wriggle room, but is doable if you do all of the other decorating yourself.

£35,000

I think you could get it done for about #25-30k if you didn't need to do lots of remedial work (damp/replacing joists) and didn't want to remove walls or chimney breasts.

We have done a couple of renovations. The big things can be surprisingly inexpensive. From experience of older properties assume the following:

• the roof will need replacing (if it hasnt been done)
• there will be woodworm
• there will be some sort of rot the above two go hand in hand with no central heating but these days are less scary than they used to be.
• it will need a damp proof course
• it will need rewiring
• it will need replumbing (assuming you dont want to wash in the kitchen sink
• it will need central heating
• it will need replastering

Looking at the age of the property is there any sort of right of way across the back? Many (practically all) terraced properties where I am have some sort of bin route across the back (gates in fences are the giveaway). This means your back garden is not as private as you think. Having looked at the sattelite view I thing that this may be the case (sorry!).

You could look at putting the bathroom in the back bedroom and put a stud partition along the side of the middle bedroom to make a corridor.

If you want to do this then get on courses - plastering, tiling etc as this will save you a fortune. Trades like electrical and gas need to be done by qualified tradesmen.

What about take the center bedroom and make two baths, a laundry, and a closet for little bedroom? Can you enlarge the kitchen and little bedroom?

Can you get a mortgage on a house without a bathroom?

Could be the whole thing would need to be gutted to get to electric, plumbing, gas, insulation.

50,000 minimum

does the house next door have a window in the roof/is a roof conversion feasible later on? You used to be able to get grants up to 5k for basic facilities like a bathroom but I don't know if they still exist.

Woodworm is rarely serious, rot can be. You have to do plumbing and rewiring, central heating could be done later. Don't consider buying without a good survey, the surveyor will give an estimate of costs.

I've done up a house very similar to that in a very similar location, no extension but:

damp proof course
wood treatment
new kitchen/bathroom (some plumbing in existence)
total rewire
put in central heating
new windows
new skirting, reclaimed doors and fireplaces.
total redecoration.

I project manged it - so used individual tradesmen which normally works out cheaper than getting an "all in" price from a general builder.

The cost was £70k + and I was by no means extravagant

Oh yes and of course re plastering.

Holy crap,the cost of that. There's a pretty similar house in my village for £ 30,000. House prices are totally mental down south.
I would vote prob 60-80k as I am assuming tradesmen etc will be more expensive in tat area as well.

I would say £50 - £70k to get it habitable and completely finished to a standard that you could sell on. I would also be making a very cheeky offer on that price - even though I know that prices in that area are insane!

I have no idea how much it'd cost to renovate but it's adorable. It says it's the first time on the market since the 1920s, someone has lived there their whole life and it's barely changed in that time. Incredible!

The knitted patchwork quilt on the single bed makes me want to cry. :(

It's under offer allready

£30,000 !!?????? that seems insane,it looks lovely as it is, really sweet and cottagey. I can see that you need wiring checked etc,but how one could throw thirty grand at it is beyond me. what on earth is wrong with it?

Hellymelly it would be very easy to spend 30 grand on that house to make it comfortable and safe. It may have had absolutely nothing done to it for decades and you need to factor in:

damp proofing
possible new roof
new windows
insulation
heating
wiring
plumbing
replacing rotten joists/floorboards
kitchen
bathroom (creating and furnishing)
replastering
decorating
garden clearance

A house can cost 6000 to rewire, 4000 to install central heating and plumbing, 3000 to replaster - you can see how it is very easy to spend 30,000. Look at QueenofDenial's post above and see what she spent!

If it hasn't been touched for 50 years then it is likely to need a lot of work; it won't be a case of slapping a bit of paint around and having someone eyeball the wiring.

hellymelly - the costs I gave further up were ACTUAL costs for our house, which is only a little larger than the one the OP is looking at, and not all that far away either.

We actually spent closer to £90,000 because we also re-roofed, installed a new bathroom and ensuite, converted existing downstairs bathroon to a utility room, knocked down a few walls to open up the downstairs, replaced all of the windows, doors, skirtings and architraves, redid the downstairs flooring and built a 3rd bedroom (to replace the room we put the bathrooms in) on the 1st floor.

Oh and replastered every wall and ceiling.

Cripes people ,I am shocked! although I would quite happily live in that house without doing anything to it other than basic safety things.It might not need a new roof,surely?