Costs for complete refurb of large house

[Level75]

Can anyone who's been there give me an idea of costs for completely renovating a large (350 Sq meter) house?
A house has come up in my dream location but it's in a bad state. It's actually 2 apartments that we'd want to turn bak into a single house. Literally everything needs doing and we need to remodel the layout, so a fair amount of knocking down walls etc.
Is 200k unrealistic?

I think 200k sounds on the low side.

Are you talking about full rewire, alterations to plumbing, internal remodelling, replastering, new kitchen and bathroom, new flooring and redecorating?

What about the windows, roof, drains etc?

It's hard to tell but 200k could be low-ish for a full renovation and converting back from 2 flats to 1 house.

I would say easily with £200k, unless you're one of those that likes to spend silly money on kitchens etc.

We spent £10k on actual building work when we knocked two very old terraced houses into one (including new staircase and girders engineered and inserted into the wall where we knocked through). Re wiring half the house coat £2k (this is seven years ago). A lot of the other stuff is either unfinished or we've done it ourselves.

To completely refurb our 127m2 Victorian stone house (strip back to bare walls and start again) was £180k. South West England.

Where are you in the country? London/Home Counties 200k probably wouldn’t scratch the surface. (For example we looked to move kitchen to back of house, needed one steel joist, no extension - quoted 50-60k. Friend in London has side kitchen extension - 100k).

We have a large house which we have done a fair bit on, not a total refurb though. We've spent £75k so far and are planning another £50k in time. That's for new kitchen, bathrooms, flooring throughout, windows, doors, new central heating and boiler, some plumbing and electrical work plus a very small amount of building work (knocking one wall down). It's staggering how much the costs add up in a large house!

It's Leeds, so hopefully cheaper than the South.

Trust me, £200k won’t even touch it. A full decent replumb of a house that size is eye watering, add in steels which cost a fortune, a full rewire will cost at least £12-15k. You can’t put a cheap kitchen in a house that size if you’re doing a full renovation so a mid range kitchen with appliances and worktops will be upwards of £25k, flooring etc

I think £300k is least you will pay for a mid spec renovation plus presumably you will need to rent somewhere for 6-9 months while you do the work.

We did a full renovation on a 2000 square foot house with knocking down and moving internal walls, no extension plus a loft conversion and it was just over £200k

I’m in London, 2200 sq ft total refurb, extension etc £380,000. Plus we need all new furniture and window furnishings.

Kitchens and bathrooms cost thousands. spent over £10,000 on skip hire.

Also, approximately how long would a total refurb take? I'm guessing at 6 months.

OK wow, well good to know now before I get too overexcited.
I haven't even mentioned that we can't get 2 mortgage for any of this because the third apartment which comes with it has a protected tenant!

I've just rennovated something a little smaller and £200k would have got me about 70% there.

A lot depends on whether the house is period because that will bump up the cost.

Yes, it's period. In a conservation area. Not listed though.

I’d say double that! We did a mostly cosmetic refurb on a slightly bigger house that cost more than that.

Ours took 14 months.

We recently did a complete renovation of 120 sq.mtr and didn't get change out of £140k.

It's very difficult to say with the little information given.

All I can suggest is that you do a comprehensive plan of all works required and get quotes before you commit.

Don't forget VAT - in reality you don't have £200k to spend.

How much work can you do yourself?

What level of finish are you after?

How cohesive are the apartments? By which I mean has one had "renovations" done in the past a period features removed that you would need/want to reinstate? Matching doors/fireplaces/mouldings etc can be very expensive.

Will you need scaffolding? As a pp mentioned costs like skip hire can be expensive and people rarely factor things like that in.

Re-wiring is one thing but buying new sockets/lighting/switch plates for a large house can cost thousands.

Do you know how to project manage something like this? By which I mean what works need to be done in which order?

The biggest red flag is the sitting tenants. Even if you can do it for your budget what happens if you need to sell?

What's the property worth with a sitting tenant even when finished to a high standard?

I've done similar projects in the past but that's after tackling multiple other properties and working up wrt the complexity/scale of the project you're describing.

I'd built up not only experience but good trade contacts - people I knew were skilled, reliable and honest.

I'm not saying don't do it - but it sounds like you need to do a lot more research before you commit.

There is a protected tenant in the house and you might spend £1/4m refurbing it? Walk away! That’s not sensible.

There is a protected tenant in the house and you might spend £1/4m refurbing it? Walk away! That’s not sensible

No, it's definitely not sensible but don't walk away.

Run.

Add up the cost of purchasing the property, 200K for renovations, and whatever it might cost to remove the sitting tennant. Once all this is done, will the house be with that much in value?
Spending a lot more money than a house is worth isn't a good idea. If it's worth £350k when finished, but you've spent £400k, you've lost £50k. And who knows what the housing market is going to look like after the Brexit debacle is resolved.
It may be that this is your forever home that you intend to live in until you're carried out in a coffin, in which case losing money short term isn't as important. We bought a small house that needed everything doing, and we had it all done high end. The house is worth more than we paid for it, but we're still out of pocket. We chose to spend 30% more than the house is now worth. But we've retired, we have no mortgage, no dependents and intend to live here til we die.
Don't be too persuaded by your heart, also put your business head in when buying property.

It's a how long is a piece of string question as it will depend on what needs doing and what you want doing, condition of property, plus location, how much you are doing yourself, are you living in property or only moving in once it's finished.
You need to break it down into some lists and allocate some sums plus around 10% contingency. I would break it down to essentials and then would likes
Don't forget any professional fees(architects, Structural engineers) or costs for planning permission, building regulations etc and VAT - quotes often don't include this
We did our large Victorian villa (about the same size as you are talking) for £120k but we are in the NE, it was generally structurally sound & the roof only needed repairs not replacement. I am an architect so didn't pay myself and I coordinated and hired the trades rather than using a main contractor (wouldn't recommend unless you know what you are doing & it's mega stressful even then), we lived in it throughout the works and took 2 yrs. We also did a chunk of the work ourselves.

You’ll need planning consent too to make them one house again and lots (most) local authorities are very reluctant to essentially reduce the number of dwellings in their area when they are under pressure to provide more, especially smaller homes

It’s the one at Weetwood isn’t it? I saw that on Rightmove yesterday.

I wouldn’t go there.

200k to remodel and refurb 350sqm is rather optimistic!
I‘d recommend a budget of 350 - 400k.
The protected tenant is another issue entirely though - I wouldn’t touch a property like this with a bargepole, even if I‘d have all the money in the world.

MaybeitsMaybelline, yes!
Protected tenant in top floor flat so would need to get rid of them.
Pretty unanimous that most wouldn't touch this sort of thing.
It would be a forever home but at those figures we'd never recover the costs even if we could sell.