House with potential?

[Teaandtoast1]

We have seen a 3 bed semi, needs updating a lot but the sticking point is the kitchen is very very small, once you have a cooker and fridge in there there's little room for anything else. BUT everyone on the streets extended theirs, We couldn't afford the 15-20k extension for some years though.

So would you buy a small house in a good area knowing that you couldn't get the house to it's full potential for a few years?

Yes, definitely.

Yes, perfect scenario. Make do for now, get dream house when you extend the kitchen and without having to move, once you've saved up the money.

Thanks for your replies, we are just so torn! It's that horrible gamble that maybe next month a house that's already done will come on the market! Grrrrrr.

Could you afford one with the kitchen done? If you can, then I'd keep looking. The house that needs the kitchen extension-is that reflected in the asking price?

Yes we can afford to go a bit higher, this is on at 225k die to th work needed and we can go upto 250k but you can't borrow for renovations can you so that's where we are stuck. There's very few going on the market where we want so choice is very limited indeed.

Sounds a good bet. You can plan your ideal kitchen, rather than making do with someone else's vision.

What deposit do you have? Could you keep some aside to do the alterations and still get the required mortgage to buy this one?

True, planning a kitchen would be good. We will have about 5k or so left over bit the whole house needs sorting, it was clearly on old ladies so hasn't been decorated in about 30 years. I've been trying to estimate a small kitchen extension but it's so hard to guess!

Well, you sort of can borrow for renovations, can't you? If you can borrow enough for a £250,000 mortgage then borrow that with a view to having some 'change' that you use for renovations.

I thought you were only allowed to borrow what the house was worth? So can we borrow 260k if the house is worth 225k? What do yo think?

How much deposit do you have?

Just seen your other thread - sorry, I didn't factor in the deposit. You're right you won't be able to borrow more than about 90% of the house's value.

Sorry yes, I started another thread for the mortgage question.

I've spent the past 2 days googling everything house related ha.

This house buying lark is stressful ha.