THIS very cheap flat, or THIS one? Advice please?

[52andblue]

A friend is buying in the Scottish Borders - entry level flat.

She has found this one:

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/99511511#/

But I think this one might be better:

www.bspc.co.uk/userfiles/property/schedules/23542.pdf?456883

Hope those links work

Both have same home report value and sim number of No 2 issues.

Any opinions ?

If i was buying the first one i'd take the kitchen wall down to extend the units along the left hand living room wall and make it one open plan room.....but she has no spare cash.....I guess it's a catch 22 situation if you don't have a big budget and the mortgage will probably be cheaper than rent would be on a comparable property.

Are there any part ownership schemes? Why is so desperate to buy that she would sacrifice heating her home?

Mortgage is cheaper than rent & in 12 years when retires will have a paid up home.
@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz wont consider part ownership for above reasons

I’m sorry OP but if she doesn’t have any money to put into repairs and so on then can she really afford home ownership at all? Monthly mortgage costs can be lower than rent but home ownership involves some quite significant chunks of cash at times and if she doesn’t have any additional financial resources she could find herself with a depreciating ‘asset’ which ends up losing her money hand over fist.

@52andblue

Mortgage is cheaper than rent & in 12 years when retires will have a paid up home. *@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz* wont consider part ownership for above reasons

I get that mortgage is cheaper than rent but surely happiness counts and if she can't get warm or dry her clothes?

I agree that's why I thought the 2nd one was better as it needs no £ spending on it. Then she still has her fixed idea of owning but is warm. There isn't really anything else less than 45K that she could choose from

It's a really low budget and agree with the others - what on earth is she thinking stretching herself to her max to buy a house without heating or a bloody kitchen? Is she nuts?

Has she seen this one? www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/87537898#/

In Galashiels, £45k, modern kitchen and heating!! Close to town centre.

There are also several in Hawick, appreciate it's even further from Edinburgh though.

The Galashiels one is lovely!

I'd rather live in a neat warm studio flat than that very first one you linked and have no money.

Once she is retired will she not get housing benefit in rented?

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

The Galashiels one is lovely!

I'd rather live in a neat warm studio flat than that very first one you linked and have no money.

Agree. Learned that as a student when we chose to rent a modern new build flat in an unfashionable part of town. We were warm in our double glazed property with lots of lovely heat and as we were top floor, benefit of everyone else's property.

My best friend rented with her boyfriend in Glasgow's trendy west end, the house had single glazed sash windows, and she was in the basement flat. It was damp, cold and her clothes went all mouldy in the wardrobe. Yuk.

Warm and comfortable in a small space trumps cold, skint and miserable in a big place every time.

@RaspberryCoulis I agree. I will show her that one too.

Hawick is too far to drive to work.
Ditto Dunfermline.
She has family in Earlston so doesnt want to be too far from them.

The first one is lovely and has a garden!

You can't live somewhere with no heating.

1 has more potential, but if she has no more money to spend it's really not going to work for her.

With 2 you could move in and live in it straight away so for that reason I'd go with number 2

Has she had a mortgage offer for the first property? It’s more or less uninhabitable, I wouldn’t be surprised if the lender wanted a retainer or evidence that she had sufficient funds available to renovate it as part of their agreement to lend.

£45k is a very low budget considering she’s taking out a mortgage. I’m sure she hasn’t made you party to all her financial arrangements but buying a cheap property in need of full modernisation when you don’t have any money to spare doesn’t seem like a sound financial decision, maybe she could do with a good friend like your to help her think things through properly.

@ComtesseDeSpair
I'd wondered that as I thought a mortgage required a functioning kitchen and Property number one doesnt have room for a cooker as it stands. She is arranging it as we speak apparently?
I've only seen it from the outside. The garden is unusable and the windows look rotten. It has a lot of Number 2 repairs on the Home Report. Mind, the last one she offered on had had a ceiling collapse in the kitchen so at least its better than that I guess!

First one, better layout.

How does it not have room for a cooker? There’s a gap next to the sink with an electric cooker point right above it! She could get a second hand cooker for about £50 and a couple of units for cupboards under the work surfaces cheaply. Then a bit of carpet throughout the flat with a good underlay (you’d probably get roll end off cuts that would fit those rooms) and curtains. While it doesn’t have central heating there is a gas fire, which although it might be expensive, would heat up the room quickly. The flat looks dry, no damp, so I think it’d be fine. I’m really not seeing this uninhabitable flat that you are! And that one you picked is a bit dark and depressing imo. At the end of the day it’s her decision.

@Honeyroar
Of course it is yes.
She is not hugely realistic about what she can 'do up' or on budgets.
(she has Autism and doesn't look after herself very well), she doesn't need a carer yet but I don't think a top floor unheated flat is for her)
You may be right about the cooker but it is quite tight.
(she'll probably live on takeaways though anyway tbh)
It has a Category 2 on the HR for damp I understand?
And the outside area will probably not be very useable for her.
Its the top left bit so not much and surrounded by kids stuff in the other bits - nowt wrong but she won't be comfortable sitting out there.

I hope to persuade her to go back to the drawing board / wait a bit.

Ah. Did someone say it was under offer anyway? Might solve the problem.

@Honeyroar
Its HER that's put the offer in ...

Oh!

I'm not being funny but if you're so short of cash that you can barely afford to buy a £40k flat then your priority should be on cheap basic home cooking not living off takeaways!!

I know someone a bit like your friend - although she did manage to get a loan to put in heating, she never did any of the other basic repairs needed (lived there for 10 years with no shower, and for 2 of those with no bath either - when she bought it she knew it needed a whole new bathroom but never had the money or the will to sort it) in the time she lived there.

At the time she could have gone for a smaller property which had parking, a nicer garden, and didn't need any work (barring some redecoration) but she rejected it mainly on size grounds, and because there was only a shower, no bath. In hindsight she definitely should have picked the place needing less work!

OP, is there any way she can generate slightly more money to put towards this? Could she extend the mortgage by a year or two? - even if she could go up to 45k I think that would improve her options - the ones mentioned above and also I saw this one already under offer and admittedly its quite small but wouldn't need any work, and it says it's walking distance to town (apologies I don't know the area at all so no idea if the agents are being honest about that!)