Anyone given up on finding dream home & bought dodgy bungalow for radical remodelling?

[PhoebeMcPeePee]

Has anyone bought a tiny bungalow on a great plot for considerably less than their budget allows but then radically transformed / remodelled it into something much bigger? We've all but given up on finding the house we want & have always dreamed of doing a new build, plus only need relatively small mortgage so wondering whether this might be the answer.

We have a budget of £375k of which £280k is deposit & have seen (online only at this stage ) a few small, mostly unmodernised, bungalows on generous plots for £125k-£175k which is theory would leave us with up to £200k to create our 'dream' home. Is this totally mad with children in tow? Anyone done similar or got any idea how (if?) we'd raise a mortgage on something like this in the current economic climate (presumably a self-build stage release type mortgage)?

Years ago in a different life we did just that. It became an eccentric dream home and I still miss it.

We're currently doing something similar. I'd say go for it but be prepared for the following (based on my experiences only!):

It will take much longer than you expected
The build will take over your life (and we have a project manager and building contractor!)
You will be in a crappy rental place for much longer than you wanted
Your life will be on hold
It will not be cheap (but we are over-speccing things by quite a bit)
You'll be paying council tax and other bills on two properties for at least a part of the time

On the other hand, it should hopefully be well worth it. You might end up with a fabulous property that otherwise wouldn't exist in your ideal area or you couldn't afford if it did.

You could also choose to rent next to your ideal school and get your kids into it prior to moving into the completed property.

We completed on the property nearly a year ago and we're hoping to move in in October. We were completely okay with taking on a major project but neither of us is sure we'd do it again unless we had a nice place to live whilst we were doing it.