Renovating a 1930's semi - budget and mortage help needed!

[jinglebellmel]

Hi all,

We have viewed a 3 bed1930's semi which the agent describes as needing 'complete modernisation'. I don't want to fall in love with this house if there is zero chance of us getting it. I know this is really difficult for people to answer as everything is so specific on the particular house/circumstances etc, but I would really appreciate comments from anyone who has bought/considered a similar house, or just anyone with experience in property.

We wont know the full extent of what needs doing unless we go ahead and have a survey, but from my limited knowledge I would guess the house will need re-wiring, re-plumbing (including new boiler and extending the central heating as not all rooms have radiators), all walls and ceilings skimmed, 6 new double glazed windows, I can't see any obvious damp, but I wouldn't be surprised if a surveyor recommended a damp proof course. Also the roof looks very old, although it doesn't seem to sag or be missing tiles they do look a bit worn and mossy, and are clearly older and a different type to the surrounding houses. Anything else I should be expecting on this type of house?

For all of this I have optimistically come to the figure of around 15K. Please don't laugh if that is totally out, but is this in anyway do-able?! The other aspects such as kitchen, bathroom, floors etc I am more confident with and will budget for separately, this amount would just be to get the basics in order.

My other concern is am I even going to get a mortgage approved at 90% LTV on a house in this sort of state? When we were FTB we had a purchase fall through as the bank wanted a 15% deposit because the house had rising damp and a few minor issues- this makes me think they will take one look at this place and decide they need a higher deposit as it is far worse than the other house was! Has anyone managed to get a mortgage with a low deposit on a house which needed lots of work?

Thanks for bothering to read this and sorry for the massive rambling post! Any advice appreciated!

ok, we bought a 1970s semi, and it was perhaps in slightly better nick, but to give you an idea, we are reckoning with about £30k including bathrooms and kitchen, new flooring on top of what you are doing - probably slightly more actually.

I'd say your estimate sounds realistic.

It is very difficult to get a 90% LTV mortgage at the moment, I think, regardless of the state of the house. We had to put down 15% - and even getting that was a struggle cause we had no credit rating in UK.

They were totally unbothered by the state of the house though.

if the property needs damp proofing the lender usual retains money from the purchase until you have completed this, also basics like plumbing boiler and electrics etc would be comming in arouend 10-12k damp proofing depends on what u need doing so budget at this point 1k reatiner. roof again depends on what needs doing could be a few repairs or a whole new roof! surveyor will be able to tell you rough idea of cost. it is doable on your budget but it is tight so shop around for the best prices and get quotes before you sign the contract for sale.

I'm not sure of the house issues.and costs but I just easily got a 95% LTV mortgage - the offer landed weekend before last so they aren't impossible to come by. It was even fee free with cashback on completion.

i would have thought all your plumbing and boilers etc. would be about 10k, re-wire could be up to 3-4k, materials for this have gone through the roof for this stuff lately. If you need a new roof it could be anything from 10-15k depending on the size of it - its much cheaper to repair a roof than renew. As for the rest it deends on what you want to spend, we put in new wiring/central heating, walls skimmed, taken down etc. two bathrooms and kitchen and quite a bit of roof work, cost us just over 60k.

We looked at a 30s semi in need of full modernisation and it came to £55-60K- without central heating! That was windows, flooring, wall down, kitchen, bathroom, en-suite, plastering, decorating, fixing damp patches. It would have been inhabitable for 2 months apparently - another thing to consider especially if you have children. The asking price was too high in light of this so our low offer wasn't accepted - fools!

Hi there, I would say your budget sounds unrealistic but it depends on what "complete modernisation" means. We moved into a 1930s semi 2.5 yrs ago and although it was old fashioned, it was structurally sound and the old lady who lived here had kept all of the receipts / guarantees for work that had been carried out. I think the double glazing and roof alone would take up most of your 15k budget. You may be able to get the central heating system done within that too if you shop around but if you need re-wiring and re-plumbing on top of that then I think you'll need to increase your budget.

We had to have a specialist damp report when we moved in and they did find some damp but its in walls we're planning to remove when we have an extension.

I don't have any experience of banks witholding money unless it is unhabitable (i.e. they can insist on a retention of the electrics are dangerous - we had this with a previous house) but haven't heard about it affecting the LTV.

Having said all that, if you can afford it, I'm sure it will be lovely when its done. 1930s houses are usually very sturdy and the space they usually offer too is great. I love our house (well, how I imagine how the house will be when we finish overhauling it!)

Whoops, I missed the roof. I would say you should get heating, windows and rewire for your £15k, but if you need a roof or other work then you will struggle.

I think you have to look at it this way - if we buy the house, how much will we have to spend immediately to make it liveable and comfortable? Can we afford to invest that, and if we invest that can we increase the mortgage to cover it.

Also think about the stuff you'd need to do once because of that work, eg will you have to redecorate after having electrics and plumbing replaced?

We decided to live in the house as it is for a year and then do the work, as I didn't want to live in a building site for years. We will take up the floors now, and put new floors down.

You don't mention what part of the country you are in. This can make a bit difference to costs.

Rewires in this part of the country are nowhere near 4k, especially if you are having it done pre-plaster so they don't need to make good.

Thanks so much to everyone for your replies. It is amazing, and scarey, just how much money can be swallowed up in house renovation! I would hate to run out of money and be living in a half finished dump for the foreseeable future.

I really think it could be a perfect long term home for us, but we do want to start a family this year (and once we have done this childcare costs mean that our disposable income will be pretty much non existent for a few years). So we can only spend what we have after the sale of the house, and what we can save in the year or so before we (hopefully) have a child.

MrsJamin - that's a real shame they didn't accept your offer, I think we may also face that problem and so maybe I don't even need to worry about all of this! How much would you (or anyone with an opinion) think you would offer on a house like this? If a comparable house, that didn't need all of the work and was well presented sold for say £225,000 and this house needs 25k spending to get to that standard would you offer 25k less than the comparable? Or would you expect to get the value of the work off plus more for the inconvenience and upheaval of having to get all of the work done?

Birds - we are in South Wales if that makes any difference? It is possible that a family member could do the re-wire for us, but I don't want to bank on that as its a lot of time to ask them to give up!

We will be porting our current 90% LTV mortgage and this has been agreed in principle. So the mortgage would just be down to our credit check (which should be fine) and the survey. I just thought that perhaps with the house being in a state they might want a higher deposit to lower the risk to themselves. Hopefully from what people are saying this isn't likely though.

We bought a house about £25k under the price of comparable houses that were done - the top renovated houses are another £5k more.

I don't think that you can compare though, because it depends on when the other house was sold, and what the current market is like in your area. Where we are, prices are reasonably stable for our size of house. Similar houses are selling for around the asking price pretty fast.

Houses over £200k are taking a lot longer to sell.

How long has the house been on the market?

its always worth a cheeky offer they can only say no!! The 15k will get you the basic rewire heating boiler and windows but nothing more you are looking around 350 pounds per room for plastering ( depending where you are) and the 1-2k for damp proofing. roof could be fine but you wont know until you have the survey! realisitcally you are going to be spending around 40k for a standard finish for kitchen and bathrooms flooring as well. Please do not overstrech yourself when offering on this property. if you sre going to do the cosmetics as you go over time fair enough do them as you can afford them.
Property market is dead at the moment so go in with a cheeky offer! however usually agents price property with the current condition in mind. How much is it on the market for op?

Hi Lindor and Kittycat,

The house is on at £215,000. A similar sized house on the next street over , went SSTC in December. I'm not sure what they actually sold for, but the asking price was £225,000. That house seemed to be in good repair and there wasn't anything obvious needing doing. There are a few others, also in good condition in the surrounding streets on at £225,00-245,000. With that in mind the asking price of £215,000 on this one seems a little high to me, however the agent it is up with generally prices pretty realistically so I'm not sure. It only went up on Saturday so I suppose they probably aren't going to accept a lower offer at this early stage. We have an offer accepted on ours and this is the 1st vaguely suitable thing to come up (the done up houses in this area are over our budget unfortunately).

I'm not sure we are ever going to have 40k to spend on it to be honest, possibly 30k but only if they accepted a low offer. Such a shame as I think eventually it could be perfect for us, but I suppose more properties will start to come onto the market soon. I really don't want us to be over stretched, as although we can easily afford it now, I know once we have children it will be a different story!

So Lindor - would you say that buying your house and getting all the work done actually saved you money opposed buying an equivalent 'ready done' house in the area? Or is this sort of thing not really such a bargain after all?

Thanks

hi would suggest you go in with an offer offer or around 194k , always go with an odd amount it makes it look like you have done your homework and stretched yourself to the limit ie 194.500 10per cent is reasonable at the moment and as you say only just come on the market. you are in a good postion too. so think this is fair price to offfer. if 225 is for a house done i think they are testing the market somewhat to see if they can get that. worth a go at any rate . property developers wouldnt have the margin to refurb the house at 215 and sell for 225.
the bonus here is you will get a house that is designed to meet your needs if you moved into a house already done how much would you rip out or change?

I don't think we will save any money. In fact, I think we will likely spend somewhere between 5 and 10k over what a similar house would cost.

BUT I will have the house that we want, done to the standards we find acceptable.

I looked at other houses and thought that it didn't matter if the kitchen was 30y old or 10yo - if it wasn't my taste then I would want a new one.

We aren't intending on selling any time soon though, and our initial investment was much much lower than yours.

We went for a house way under what the bank would have been willing to finance so that we had low mortgage payments. We are lucky that where we live this is doable.

Also - see if you can find out if the owners are selling cause they are moving on or if it the heirs. We put in a v low offer but because we were willing to move fast and had no chain, it was accepted.

Depends on finish I'd say and if you are prepared to get things reclaimed from websites like gumtree. For new stuff and 15k you have zero chance and would maybe get minimal completes. Best quotes I got was 1200 electrical rewire but from a mate and I chased in, new valiant boiler with fitting 2100. Plumbing and bathroom 1500. Tiling 700. Kitchen reclaimed 650 fitting 500. Roof and insulation repair of main roof 500. Flat roof replacement to pitch 1000. Plastering and damp repair 1500

Zombie thread.

This thread is 3 years old. Prices will have changed. Why are you reviving old threads halphy ?