Weird wooden extension above kitchen- second bedroom

[Lolly567]

Just been to view a house- location is perfect, looks lovely from outside, period house, lovely although a bit busy at rush hour road with high ceiling price and this is probably the cheapest house on the road.. 3 bed but one of the bedrooms can only really be classed as a cupboard as I don’t event think there’s room for a single bed!! And the other is split in two, with this strange wooden extension making up the other half of it! Apparently it’s been like this for over 15 years as the previous owner bought it likd this (don’t know when it was actually done..).. does anyone know if you could live with something like this for a few years? There also seemed to be damp in the room that had been painted over. We’d want to do a small (like 2m by 2m) 2 story extension anyway to improve dining area and main and only bathroom which currently can’t fit in a bath and has a terrible tiny space saving sink.. so would it make sense to do that at same time as replacing this crap extension?

I want the house for location and could move straight in (the owner has put in new carpets and fresh paint) and live with it as it’s just the two of us and then do the work when we can.. but DP thinks it’s too much work. But if it wasn’t we’d not be able to afford that location! Also DP thinks we’d have to replace the rubbish extension straight away as he thinks it’s really badly maintained and as mentioned has damp on the original exterior wall side and This is when it’s hot! So would probably be horrible in winter..

Sorry this is a stream of consciousness but we’ve just come back from the viewing and have been discussing loads but really we’ve no idea so if anyone has any experience it’ll be greatfully received!

Yes, you certainly need a surveyor. That construction looks a little 'homespun' , to be kind. May not be mortgageable.

Yes we do need a mortgage and are FTB with only a 10% deposit (plus around £4000-6000 for moving fees)

I asked the estate agent whether he thinks there would be problems getting a mortgage, he said he ‘wouldn’t like to say for sure’ but he didn’t think there would be problems as it was done when the previous person bought it.. but that was 2003 and I think it was a property investor who rented it out so maybe he bought with cash at the time.. do you think it would be valued low by surveyor?

I was scrolling down the picture, thinking, nowt wrong with a bit of wooden cladding. Even if it does need maintenance.
Then I got to the bottom of the cladding.

You could pay for a survey, to discover what on earth is going on there- and a sense of curiosity might lead me to consider doing that. Remember, you can ask a surveyor, in the first instance, to examine and give you info on a single issue in a house, to keep the cost down if it's a potential deal-breaker.Then return and carry out rest of survey if negotiations on that one issue have been satisfactorily concluded.

But I wouldn't bother if replacing the whole bedroom extension was financially impossible for you.Because that might be needed.

OTOH, a truly bad survey should drive the price down. On the third hand, probably not a goer if you need a large percentage mortgage.

Thanks everyone- yeah I was wondering if we got to survey stage and said it was only worth this much.. then we could negotiate down the price.. it’s an empty property so they want to sell it as they want want to ‘continue maintaining it’ as they live down south..

I was thinking of initially trying to visit for a second viewing with a builder who might give us a free quote- but do you think visiting with a surveyor would be better? How much would this be likely to cost?

Very grateful for everyone’s knowledge btw thank you!! Also does anyone know roughly how much it would cost to completely replace? Or even for now we don’t actually need that space at all, so would it be viable to just completely remove it and rebuild the exterior wall, and then when we have the money for the 2 story 2x2 extension we could redo that extension at the same time (the space is also about 2x2 I think).. so does anyone know how much it would cost to demolish and rebuild the external wall for now?