Are doer-uppers worth it anymore?

[redandblacks]

Considering that they go for much higher prices than in the pre-Internet days, cost of building materials risen hugely (diesel, VAT) and cost/quality of labour being unlike what it was in the good 'ol days. Has it become trickier to renovate or is my age catching up with me?

I've been thinking about this recently and have come to the conclusion that major building work will probably still make a profit but a renovation such as decorating, new kitchen and bathroom, sorting garden out etc just seems to make a property more saleable.

We renovated our house. It was awful when we bought it. We did most of the work ourselves. We've just sold and have broken even which was definitely not worth it because we spent every weekend and holiday for a year working on it.

That said the work protected us from losing money in a crashing market. We would have definitely lost money if we hadn't done the work and wouldn't have found a buyer as competition is stiff.

We are proud of all our work and we've enjoyed living here but I wouldn't do it again.

Just my experience though....I expect it depends on buying very cheap in the first place. The price we paid was cheap at the time but not now prices have fallen.

It's so hard to tell what the property market is going to do from year to year. I have just bought a house for only £8k more than its last owners paid for it in 2005. In the years they owned it, they put in a new kitchen and bathroom, partially converted the loft, built a conservatory, installed wood burners, landscaped the garden, and built decking - all work well done, as far as I can see - and costing far more than the £8k extra they got back.

I've pondered this for a long time as it seems to me you effectively pay a premium for a wreck (round here anyway).

Personally I think if you're buying a property to make money on and sell it on fairly wuickly its not worth it unless you are very skilled have lots of time and can do a lot of the work yourself. However if there is somewhere that you really like and want to live in as your home and the want the chance to make it your own then that's different.

Round here (se) the market is really rising so it seems as though profits are being made on wrecks but you could probably have bought it done nothing and still make a ''profit''.

I think it's only something to do when it will make your house just what you want, to make money I think you need to be a builder or something. I think you would probably make the costs back but it can't be worth it for the profits.

Well I am in London so the market is sound but the wrecks seem to go for around 20k less than a house in average condition and in popular areas could end up going for the same price. I've done it three or four times in the past but I cannot imagine there is any euphoria to be experienced if you slave away at it, simply break even and end up selling to Mr and Mrs Fusspot who take out all the nice fixtures because they want their rooms to look like 'that picture from the Argos catalogue' .

We're living in our forever home that we could afford to buy when we did because it was a wreck. We did the structural stuff, and we're gradually doing the rest as and when we have the time and money.

Financially, I think it's probably going to come out pretty even at the end, but we have done some things (like ethernet absolutely everywhere) for us, rather than for the market.

I think if you are doing to make a fast buck, then it is very difficult. If your aim is to buy, renovate and then live it, then it is still worth it.

We have almost completed a very small scale doer-upper. 70s semi, put in new windows, bathroom, cloakroom, GCH, oak flooring, carpets, replastered the whole house and painted. Oh, and new internal doors. We still have kitchen to do, and the garden.

The house is now worth about what we paid + what we invested, so no profit.

We could have done it cheaper, if we had been doing it to sell, and would have made a small profit, but not sure it would have been worth the hassle and the work involved. If we'd done the work ourselves, it would have been a lot cheaper.

I'm in a doer upper too, v small, have lived in it for 4 years already. I think once it's finished in a couple of months we'll probably still be in negative equity, but my view is that without doing it up it'd be worth even less and we wouldn't even be able to rent it out.

We've been looking at these types of properties as we are often drawn to them, but I get fed up with estate agents selling you the potential. Surely potential is not a fixed thing until it is realised. Prices are too high for these types of projects and feel risky in this economic climate too.

I think if you buy a house cheap enough and budget for the work to be done, add a few grand for going over budget, then compare to present market saleable value (not estate agent valuation) you can make a good profit. Its about how cheap you get the house, how much work you do yourself etc.

They seem to load the potential on to the asking price around here. Which defeats the purpose.

I was once interested in a house but unfairly pipped to the post by a young, female estate agent from a neighbouring agency whom I knew (as I was registered with her too and might even have mentioned this one was selling in conversation).
I felt awful at the time but recently found out that the road has barely gained any value (odd for London) and the doer-upper would have left me in a bad state financially.

We bought a doer upper. About to start the major building work - we will have spent about £120k on it by the time we're done and if we sold straight away I guess we'd maybe make £20-30k profit on it. Maybe a bit more. What makes it worth doing is that we want to live here for a bit and we couldn't afford as much room by buying. We've had a fairly buoyant housing market in this bit of the world too, house has increased by nearly 10% since we bought it anyway. I do sometimes wish we'd bought the house next door, which was the same price but had a bigger kitchen instead of our dodgy loft conversion though...