Things you wish you'd been told about home ownership...

[evrybuddy]

Accepting of course, that owning your own home puts you in the most fortunate and privileged section of society - so all moaning is strictly relative...

There are some things I've learnt painfully and expensively over the years that I wish I'd known at the start

1. Don't buy a house with an actual grass and plants type of front garden - this is probably a personality type problem.

Unless you like dressing like a scarecrow and cleaning cat and dogshit up endlessly.
Unless you like other people watching you throw tantrums while dressed your worst and sweating like a pig while uselessly throwing a spade at the rock hard soil.
Unless you also find it funny to have one neighbour after another say (so originally) 'Well, when you're done there, you can always do mine' ha ha ha ha ha

Of course if you own a mansion with an in/out drive and tall hedges (and a gradener) this proabbly isn't a problem.

Otherwise buy a house with a driveway .... or a flat.

No matter how new your kitchen, it will always look dated or not to the taste of potential buyers.

White bathrooms are popular.

I dont think our house appreciated 50k in 4 months . Its not Bishops Avenue

Its interesting, though, the whole 'renovation' question. maybe its different in London to the rest of the country?

A few houses have sold on our road in the last six months.

Two 4 bed semis that were probably originally identical, but one family have extended the kitchen and ponced up the place really nicely when they were living there - swanky bathroom, manicured garden, Farrow and Ball-tastic, you get the picture.

The other was owned by old folks and although the basics are decent, it needs a face lift.

One sold for 900k. The other sold for 1.3 mil. Thats a big bloody difference for what is essentially the same house but with probably 50k's difference in work .

On another note, totally agree with the pain of the cost of upkeep when you own a house. It seems a never-ending cycle of expenditure, especially in an older property

I came on to say the opposite of everybody else, that you will be amazed at what you can do yourself 😂

How much can go wrong that needs fixing.

I am stunned from looking at property pr0n when listings will cite a 'dated' kitchen, when it looks like a luxury one to me!

@limesoda...true, but you have to draw the line if DIY affects resale value or comes up as an issue in the survey...

It seems that houses aren't homes anymore; just an investment opportunity. I am sure that 98% of homeowners consider selling up and pocketing the profits as much as I lust after the next rental home...

Fencing is much more expensive than you'd think. DH was adamant we needed someone good, to be fair.

I'm another who thinks there isn't much value to add tarting up - in our area, anyway. People buy based on floor area, number of bedrooms and school catchment. I think the area is so much in demand by families, it drives up the prices of even the most neglected, old fashioned house so there are more or less no bargains left.

An extension if adding a bedroom, playroom or "live in kitchen" will add serious value, but otherwise renovations don't really pay these days. It might well be different outside the "normal family buyer" price range..

Until I was 30 I moved around the country and the world leading a wonderful, exciting life and felt free.

Then I bought a house and stopped living.

I do wish someone had told me how much houses cost to decorate and maintain. New boilers, kitchens and bathrooms cost a fortune.

@BrendasGotABaby - you may not be on the Bishops Avenue but if semis are going at £1m - you're probably not in a Durham colliery town either.

To give a comparison, I live in a SE area where the average price would be way less than half of that.

Houses that sold last summer at £280k ish are selling now at £325k ... so £50k market rise on a million pound house is peanuts by comparison

It would be difficult to imagine that 'home improvements' add £50k of realisable equity onto your house 'above' the market value of any other renovated house on your street.

Estate agents - (they never lie of course!) will usually guesstimate of getting an immediate return of about 60% of what you spend around here.

Of course, a house is only worth what people will pay and if you think the market in your area hasn't risen by that amount, it's hard to see how the maths work for you to increase the value of your house by £50k above the standard market value for a done-up house on your street - just by doing it up...

I'm in London, 'tis true. But not a posh area. Thats London for ya! Crazy prices.

I'm not really putting across an argument either way, to be honest. Just making observations on whats happened locally to me.

This is how the 'renovation' market our way works at the moment.

A 2 bed house 'done-up' will sell at around £250k

You 'used to be able to buy a 'doer-upper' at under £200k (developer's price) depending on how desperate/aged/naive the seller was.

Spend up to £25k and Bob's your uncle £25k in bank 3 months later

Those sellers have largely gone and now the 'doer-up' is being marketed at £225k - so if a developer bought at that price, they then find people aren't willing to pay an extra £25k premium for a 'developer's' refurb (cheap kitchen, bathroom, carpet and paint) - so there's no longer really a developer's/renovation market.

There's just no real margin anymore in developing unless you're an actual builder yourself

I totally get what you're saying Brenda - I think I'm wishing I hadn't wasted years renovating when my feeling is now, that all the work was in vain because the 'actual' rise in values was attributable to house price rises and I wish I'd save myself a load of bother and watched more tv, and had more sex.

I think if you don't care about returns and renovate to make your house your home, you won't necessarily get a huge amount of profit in the short term but you have a home you love to live in,. Surely that's one of the biggest pluses of buying.

That's so true Doris. House prices have risen like crazy here in the last few years. SSo sellers want 500k for a 'done' house, that was doneup when it was worth 250k, with dulux and cheap carpets/laminate and a shiny Wickes kitchen with laminate worktops. No thanks, I'd rather have 70s naff for 440 to 450k than 00s naff for 500k. Especially as I can turn it into something nice that suits me perfectly for less than 60k.

Open plan ain't all it cracked up to me. Life with 2 preteen a means our we've sold up and are moving specifically so We are not living in each other's pockets ! All hail the wondrous invention the door!

What's nice when your children are toddlers is NO FUN when they are glued to stampy bloody long nose in the same room when you are trying to make tea after 9 hours at work.

Yessss! How could have forgotten the great:

Open Plan Delusion

I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever... (enough already)...

buy a property which has a kitchen open plan to any other room.

If I listen to another architect spouting the great codology of the kitchen at the heart of the home again - I will seek them all out and implant the sound of microwaves whirring for 10 minutes into their ears on an eternal loop.

Or, the music of a 1200 spin for 15 mins during the Night Manager conclusion.

The gentle vibration that penetrates all peace

Or, the lovely odour of Bombay chicken - I get to enjoy the lovely meal for one night and savour the odour for 2 more days - yum.

Or the industrial hum of a powerful extractor fan over The Killing - it's subtitled so....

Or the joy of low level tumble drier condensation

Dishwashers, taps, crockery, cutlery, cupboard, doors..... on and on and on.... never again.

These are all things architects and stylists think we WANT in our living rooms!!!!!!!!

In a new build, they just scream cheap, economising, poor quality design and workmanship.

The Victorians built walls for a reason - please don't take my walls away.

Our new house will easierly swallow up 30k worth of renovation and I'm not sure we will ever recoupe that in 30years when we've paid off our mortgage and looking to downsize. Previous owners bogged off to France and didn't keep up with basic requirements just continued to collect monthly rent vive la baby boomers!!

I'm with you there jimijack - when I was renovating my house I spent more time in B&Q than actually working on the house and at one point asked the cashier jokingly if I could just have my wages put into a b&q account each month as that's where it ends up anyway!

I wish someone had told me that just because a house looks like it doesn't need anything doing probably means its been tarted up to sell and will probably fall apart the minute you get the keys - yep that's what happened to me..

I think next time I will stalk my potential neighbours for days/weeks on end. Google them, facebook them, buy a copy of the house deeds from land registry so i know if they own the house or are renting -( if they are renting ill google the landlord). Follow them and make sure they go to bed at a reasonable time, don't have parties, don't deal drugs...and as evrybuddy states - the bad neighbours never move or get evicted and seem to be able to get away with every single illegal activity without so much as a slap on the wrist. All sounds rather extreme but I recently found out one of the tenants next to me was "involved" in the murder of a friends cousin, (not recently obviously) drives with no license or insurance, grows and deals drugs... a bit of googling would have revealed all this and had I known all the things I know now I probably would have run very far, very fast.....

So be warned, if you see someone stalking you in the future chances are its probably me and I want to buy the house next to you haha

We moved into a run down house that needed serious renovation (at least 10 trips to the tip with junk left by the previous renters, leaky roof so if went to the loo when it was raining you'd get dripped on, would frequently encounter slugs in the kitchen etc etc). After waiting months to get started we then lived in the building site for about 6 months. Including knocking down the extension containing the bathroom and kitchen and 'making do' moving temporary facilities around the house. It was chaos, dust everywhere constantly and never any peace as always something to be done. I missed hot water on tap, being able to nip to the loo without having to tell anyone so they could turn their backs/ take a walk as no doors. We'd held enough money back from buying the house to do most of the building work. DH and FIL did most of the work themselves or called in favours from friends. Only paid for what had to. So it did take a long time. But it did get done. I love our house!
It's how we like it. We could never have afforded a house on this road/this size if we hadn't gone the renovation route. We know we can plan on staying here until we decide it's time to move.
Yes there is the nightmare of coming back from Easter Weekend away to finding a hole in the roof and a soggy patch in the loft which is our problem to fix. But it's worth investing money into the roof, the garden, boarding the loft etc as we plan on staying here long term. A landlord generally doesn't make improvements, designed to suit you, without charging you or putting your rent up!

One thing I would do differently would be get a professional to do the painting! It took us ages and particularly our early efforts were really poor. The wobbly lines I did where wall meets bathroom ceiling do annoy me every time I have a bath!

If you want to renovate do it. You get the house and the location you want and you are not living with other people's design mistakes and fixtures for ages. Renovate it to live in though life isn't all about house prices. I have bought lived in and renovated 7 houses to some extent (minor to major). I have made a killing and lost a fortune but each one was for me not with a view of its saleability . You home is for living in not live for your home unless you are a buy to let where you are talking a whole different ball game.

I don't have an open plan kitchen now, but I admit I loved it when the kids were younger. I could keep an eye on them while making dinner, easier to supervise homework etc. Noise was never an issue: washing machine was in the utility room, dishwasher and extractor were very quiet. TV was in another room. It worked fine.

Now kids live on another floor altogether which also works fine

That houses can be done up to sell, so the floor is soggy.

That the landlord only needed two plug points in the whole kitchen as he doesn't have lots of gadgets.

That the sliding doors don't slide.

That the washing machine may die in week 1 and the microwave may give up the ghost on your birthday.

Having said all that, I love my house! My mortgage is MUCH less than my rent and I love it.

As very naive first time buyers 12 years ago we bought a 3 bed semi in need of renovation. It was the only way we could afford a decent 3 bed house. It's been hard work, expensive and there's constantly been jobs needing doing. Before we could even move in we needed to install central heating and a boiler, rewiring, double glazing, new doors and damp proofing. Once we were in we redecorated every room, the carpets stank of dog pee, previous owners diy jobs were dangerous, nothing was in livable condition. We've recently had the guttering and the drive redone and cavity wall insulation put in so we're finally getting there. I can't believe how naive we were, it's a good house though in a decent area with good schools and lovely neighbours so it's been worth it. We've sworn though that the next house we buy will be brand new.