Wanting to renovate a doer upper

[Sleepyquest]

Has anybody got any advice on where to start with buying a house at auction and doing it up? We wouldn't intend on living in the house, it would purely be done to sell on and make some money. I'm pretty clueless as to how it works with mortgages and such and wondering where to look for the info. Our reasons for doing this is we want to make money using our existing savings and then if it goes well, we'd do it again!

Thanks

To be honest, property is not for novices anymore. Those days are gone when you could flip and make money easily. The fact that you are so clueless (quote), means you will be up against the professionals and almost certainly pay more. Main things to consider are auction fees and additional rate stamp duty.
There are easier, more lucrative ways to invest to be honest.

Watch homes under the hammer where people do this all the time. Read the information pack and never buy a house without seeing it first!

Where to start... Have you a property in mind? How competitively priced is it? Do you need a mortgage? Is it mortgageable? is it detached/semi/terraced/flat? What do you need to do to it? How much will that cost? Do you know people in the building trade who can advise/work on it? Do you intend to project manage? How will you do that if you are working? What is the market like where you are? Where do you think it will be at in a years time? That is just the beginning of the variables off of the top of my head...

You can make money but it is difficult now for the reasons the PP said. It will be a huge learning curve but you could end up losing not making money.

If you want to buy at auction it is unlikely that you will be able to do it with a mortgage. One reason is the time period it needs to go through within, it’s often 28 days or you lose a 10 percent deposit. Also as the pp mentioned it might not be a mortgagable property, especially if it needs a lot of work (e.g no water/heating).

@bilbodog

Watch homes under the hammer where people do this all the time. Read the information pack and never buy a house without seeing it first!

There’s only money to be made if you do almost all the work yourself or if you have a portfolio and several properties on then go at one time a team of builders. Doing it yourself only makes sense if your own job pays less then the labour you put into renovation.

Are you or your partner in the trade? Unless one of you is a builder/handy you will struggle to turn a profit.

As per upthread it is not for novices.

I can't see how it makes sense if you're doing it yourself these days with permissions etc. Also depends what you do for a living (e.g. I've seen programmes where they say they've been working on a house and made a £10k profit in 6 months and the person's usual day job was an IT contractor..)

We've been looking at a property recently which has been done up by the owners. We found the previous floor plan. The vendor has moved bathrooms and kitchens into other rooms and repaired the roof, seemingly any of the necessary consents you need these days.

In the nicest possible way if you need a mortgage forget auctions. You need to complete so quickly (28 days) unless you had a specialist lender who you’d worked with several times before I’d bet my bottom dollar you wouldn’t find a lender happy to touch you.

Also CGT changes have made it nowhere near as lucrative as it used to be. The only people I know who make any money doing this are people who can buy (in cash) huge volumes, have builders/QSs/PMs they work with a lot and have secured good/mates rates with, as well as excellent working knowledge of construction materials/methods etc. And they can spread the risk a bit as they have several on the go.
Making any money buying one is virtually impossible and especially not with a mortgage - arrangement fees and penalties for selling it on quickly would probably decimate any profit, if you made any in the first place.

For various reasons, please let this sounds like a bad idea. Even assuming you have great building skills, and there huge uncertainty around the housing market at the moment. What with a pandemic and massive recession and what not.

Hahah you guys say it like it is. I know nothing so thanks for all your comments. My husband and I are ambitious and would like to make some money separately to our jobs but it seems like this may not be the way to go.

What about an air bnb or buy to let that didn't need any work?

I wouldn’t go down the Air Bnb route councils are cracking down on them in certain areas, I know Manchester City council have in the area around the MCFC stadium. Buy to Let’s can be a good long term investment but be ready to not make any money on them for a year or two at a time.
Property isn’t the rock solid investment it used to be. If it’s a large sum I’d maybe speak to a wealth manager?
I know a couple of construction professionals (quantity surveyors, NEC project managers etc) who make money buying land and building on it BUT essentially that is their job, industry knowledge and contacts save them a fortune.