Best websites for houses needing restoration or reposessions

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Hi All

We have been looking at buying a house for a few years now but are obviously very picky and cannot find any (that we can afford!) that we like. So we have decided to look out for any renovation jobs or reposessions.

However much I google I can never find any sites with houses in my area (Oxfordshire). I know there must be some. Can anyone help me by recommending the best webistes?

Many thanks

Marking place

Www.spab.org.uk publish a list every quarter of historic properties needing 'rescuing'. Is this the sort of thing you might find interesting? I think it's about £15 to subscribe.

'Every quarter, the SPAB compiles and publishes a list of historic buildings in need of repair or new use that are for sale or lease.
These range from castles to cottages to churches to industrial buildings and prices range from £50,000 to £10 million.

The list is only available to SPAB members as we are aiming to find sympathetic and principled owners for buildings ?in need?.'

Or Plotsearch and Plotfinder often have renovations listed as well as plots, not reposessions though really.

Auction sites are good for reposessions, like Allsop or Barnard Marcus, or ones more local to you.

If you want something historic, join SPAB as was said before.
Repos and restoration jobs often come up at auction - I think you need to find your local auctioneers and register with them.

We have also been looking for years and not found anything we like within our price range, but that's more to do with the property bubble than anything else, I think. Increasingly things are starting to come into our price range and the market is not expected to rise any time soon. Falls are slow but they are happening in my area; don't know about yours though. You might find a bit more patience is all that's required.

There actually aren't that many restoration jobs around these days - it's a result of having a property market that's been booming for a long time, so it's been worth people's while to do them up and sell them on. Lately it simply hasn't been good value to do this: if you buy a restoration job now you need to look VERY carefully at how much it will cost to do the work, or you will end up spending more money than it would have cost to buy a property in good condition in the first place. Vendors often underestimate how serious problems are because they've lived with them happily for years, so the price doesn't always reflect the amount of work needed.

Hi

Thanks for those websites.

SPAB sounds like just the thing. We want to create a beautiful 'forever' home, not make money out of it.

It's great joining SPAB - you have to sign up to their Manifesto, as written by William Morris here

OP, do you promise to put Protection in the
place of Restoration, to stave off decay by daily
care, to prop a perilous wall or mend a leaky roof
by such means as are obviously meant for support
or covering, and show no pretence of other art,
and otherwise to resist all tampering with either
the fabric or ornament of the building as it stands;
if it has become inconvenient for its present use, to
raise another building rather than alter or enlarge
the old one; in fine to treat our ancient buildings
as monuments of a bygone art, created by bygone
manners, that modern art cannot meddle with
without destroying?