Total refurb costs for London fixer-upper?

[edeluna]

DH and I are in the very early stages of considering buying a house that would need total renovation. Aside from wondering if we've lost our minds, we're also wondering how much such a project would realistically cost. We're first-time buyers, so this is all new to us.

The house we're looking at is a 4-bed semi-detached in north London and it would need:

• modernised heating system
• possibly extensive rewiring
• complete redecorating
• loft refurb (already converted but in poor condition)
• all new appliances
• refurb existing bathroom and add ground-floor toilet and utility room and loft shower room
• new kitchen
• new flooring/carpet throughout
• add built-in wardrobes/storage in bedrooms, shelving in lounge
• possibly take down wall between kitchen diner for more open plan
• possibly convert large existing garage, at least in part, to garden office
• possibly open main flue for woodburning stove
• redo garden

Some estimates I've seen seem very low, such as £5k for a new kitchen or £5k for a complete rewire, so I'm finding it hard to get an idea of real costs.

We would be looking to do it all up to a very good standard, but not talking smart fridges or anything like that.

Also, how long would such a project take?

I know these are quite general questions and a survey will help to determine exactly what needs doing, but if anyone has been through it and could share their experience and what it all cost, I'd appreciate it! TIA

My advice would be to go back and see it with a builder and get them to give you a ballpark figure of costs.

I’ve managed that before on 80k but that was me project managing individual trades. It was in a part of London where the done up house was worth 600-650k. If you’re looking in an expensive area, you’ll need to put in more expensive things and you might get higher quotes. I wouldn’t be surprised if people spend 150-200k if they get in a company do manage and do all the work and install things like Fired Earth bathrooms or Neptune Kitchens.

It's absolutely impossible to say. Sorry. It could be £200k or £20k depending on so many factors - things like whether or not you need to move the waste pipe, whether the walls you want to knock down are supporting or not, current condition of the house (i.e. is there any hidden damp etc), whether the boiler needs to be replaced... There's just way too many variables.

Even after you get quotes things can change. We had a quote to reskim the plaster in our lounge and repaint for £2k. We allowed £4k just in case. They found damp and wet rot and we ended up having to replace the floor, take all the walls right back and replaster them completely. In the end we spent more like £10k.

As for how long it would take, again, it depends on what you're doing and how much of it you want to do at once. You could do it all in 6 months if you lived somewhere else and threw a ton of money at it. Or it could take 10 years if you're doing it yourselves, bit by bit.

All I would say is when you get your quotes, double both the time and money estimates and you're likely to be closer to the truth.

I would be surprised if it was under 100k and less than 6 months tbh

Agree with upwards of £100K depending on how high end you were looking at for kitchen units, appliances and things like tiles and flooring.

I’m in the process of buying a two-bed fixer-upper in south London which needs a new kitchen, bathroom, new boiler, flooring throughout, full decorating, new front door, garden landscaping and garden office and have £50K as a conservative estimate based on a trade-price bathroom suite, parquet floors, a mid-range Ikea kitchen and appliances and doing the cosmetic and painting stuff myself. And my kitchen and bathroom are pretty small. I’m hoping to have all the major work done in two months and then I’ll move in and do the rest as I go. If I was having someone else do it all I reckon if would be a lot longer than that.

We did a London house renovation, cost literally twice as much as projected and took 3 times as long as projected.
It was a just a hellishly stressful experience that I would never repeat. I’d suggest buying somewhere needing less work so you can enjoy other things in life.

It doesn't sound like you know enough about this to go ahead. It isn't an easy thing to do and you really need a good understanding of the project in order to do it in a cost effective way.

I would say minimum £100k but probably nearer £200k for high end finish.

I think you could do a lot with £100k and you might struggle with less. We are mid refurb and our projection is £90-100k but you could easily spend more. We’ve spent/committed so far: £6k on new radiators throughout, £4k on a partial rewire (the rest to follow), £3.5k on carpet, £3k on wooden floor sanding, £7k on two wood burning stoves, £2k stripping wallpaper/woodchip, £3k on redecorating (4 rooms so far), £2k on a new water supply pipe, £15k on some structural alterations, £15k on kitchen (cabinets, appliances, worktops). We still need: 2x bathrooms, a new hot water system (unvented cylinder), and a bunch more bits and bobs

But you could easily spend double that if you wanted, everything is kind of mid-range

Your list also does not account for other structural things that may need work, roof, windows, chimney stacks etc, you never know what you are really dealing with until you actually start work and open the proverbial can of worms.

I agree with at least £100k minimum.

We spent over 250k doing what was meant to be much less significant work as we encountered endless structural problems. Although we also learned a huge amount about what we would NOT do again in a similar situation.

We did similar and it was about £200k I think including ground floor extension for kitchen and loft conversion. It's a huge job, you will definitely need an architect and possibly a project manager. If you've never done any building work before it's a very steep learning curve. You may find you need to move out for parts of the work. We managed to avoid that to save costs but it was hard going.

I’d say £150k plus as similar to what we had to do

We did a London refurb two years ago pretty much along the same lines and we ran out of money at 95k, and that was being really meticulous with the budget. We need at least another 30k to finish. I think you're looking at six months max to do all that work.

3 bed semi in South East, with extension and us doing a shed load of the work £150k.

Make sure that you will get back what you spend or at least be able to stay there for a while. I know 2 people that bought fixer uppers, went over the renovation budget but when selling couldn't recoup all the costs as the road/area had a ceiling if that makes sense.

I’m in the process of doing something similar for my mother. £2k per m^2 is proving very accurate.

If you are just refurbishing and replacing bathrooms and kitchen, in the same positions, then £1k per m ^2

180k for us, 7 years ago. (Kitchen extension and attic conversion, full rewire, full replastering, new kitchen and bathroom, sanding floors throughout house, various incidentals (new partition upstairs for eg). Nothing very fancy either in terms of cost of fittings etc, and we did all the decorating ourselves. I'd say if you get any change from 200k and six months of work you'd be v lucky!

I'd budget for at least £150k. Costs can easily spiral and as another pp said it can be a can of worms. I'd recommend a contingency fund of another £30k minimum.
Can you get a building firm in to take a look and then give you an estimate? Is it structurally sound? If not, then consider additional costs of eg underpinning.

Unless it's going to be your 'forever' home, tbh I'd probably walk away.

It depends what sort of finish you're after. An Ikea kitchen can be 5k but if you want a higher end brand then it can be a 5 figure sum.

Can you do any of the work yourself? Even stripping wallpaper and removing tiles can save money.

Personally I'd be budgeting 200k and bracing myself for more problems appearing during the refurb.

I would say minimum £100k but probably nearer £200k for high end finish.

agree with this. And that doesn’t include any non building costs like architect and surveyor fees, or the money on renting somewhere temporarily for at least part of the time (if you have DC it will drive you up the wall to try to live there throughout)

Unfortunately doer uppers tend to have nasties lurking that cost extra so you’d need a generous contingency fund too.

Oh timing. Well we got told 8 months and it was 11. You‘d have less structural stuff so I’d say builders will tell you 5 and it’s actually going to be 8.

I would have said you'd need 100k to start with, and do the most important jobs first, rewire, new bathroom etc because you may run out of money before you get to things such as garden redo, garage conversion, fitted wardrobes.