feeling really depressed about our house and think we def HAVE to move but dont know how it will actually sell

[belcantavinissima]

its very old- about 300 yrs old, its been in the family for about 150 yrs. we moved in about 5 and a half yrs ago and have spent loads putting in central heating, redecorating it, new kitchen bathroom etc and doing up the garden. BUt we have a damp problem. and its getting worse and worse. dh redid my wardrobe in my room recently as it was damp and it was fine for a couple of months now have taken some of the xmas pressies out from it to wrap and there are huge wet patches all over the inside walls with white fluffy mould over everything. my wedding dress and ballgown are ruined as well as loads of everyday clothes. the kids' pressies are soaking. there is damp in the kitchen, a huge black mouldy wall under one of the units, black spotty damp creeping up the walls and onto the ceiling. i cant keep up with it
i think alot of the prob is its mainly cob but it has been concrete rendered. and it cant 'breathe'. we had a quote to have the render stripped off and it to be lime rendered but it was going to cost £16,000 {shock] which is way out of our budget. it also has no foundations due to its age and it is built on springs.
no-ones going to buy it are they? what can i do to make it saleable? oh, and i also think the roof is leaking as wet in loft the other day- roof is asbestos tiles. oh fuck fuck fuckety fuck. we have a massive mortgage as have remortgaged twice to do stuff to the house. but its all been in vain . what if we cant sell it and end up with neg equity? never thought i'd say it but i want a new build, dont even caqre if its on an estate. just dont want the problems anymore. but we cant afford to pay out more than we are at the moment. dont know what to do or where to start.

Surely there are always those buyers that long to live in old atmospheric houses? You only need one serious buyer anyway and sure the right person will come along. Good luck with it

location vital for that kind of house
the area should sell it

it is a really bad time to sell right now. i would grit my teeth and stay. get a few more quotes for the render work

oh god the location is crap as well. it used to be on its own in fields even when i remeber when i was little it was pretty empty around. now its surrounded by newer houses, its on a main road and apparently the 'wrong side of the river'

what can i do about the damp problem in the meantime? it cant be healthy for a start as well as putting people off

I'd be inclined to get several estate agents round and get answers from them as to the value and saleability of the property. If you can, see if there are any specialist estate agents dealing with your type of property. As someone else said, there are likely to be buyers for older properties who accept the structural issues that other buyers would struggle with.

Ditto on work to the house - get quotes from not only damp specialists but also master builders (and then local builders) for the work - getting several jobs done as one may make it all cheaper.

Speak to your mortgage provider - see how much more you can get from them and on what terms or whether they can offer any home improvement loans.

Once you have some actual information you'll be better placed to figure out what's the best way forward.

no point in selling it now unless you're fit to take a huge hit
Houses are dropping in price and it isa ghastly time of year to sell.
Hang on until the spring, a resurgent market could inflate your house price enough for you to borrow to fix some of the problems OR to take a lower price.

Oh god this is scary - we need our concrete stripped and the whole house relimed too!

Could you perhaps get a grant - some old buildings you can get money to do repairs on - I know our council doesn't do it but another local one does!

If £16k to fix the damp problem at source is way out of your budget then you probably can't afford to move anyway just now, given the way prices are, the cost of the moving process (stamp duty, legal fees, movers etc), and the inevitable expenses of sorting out a new place - you always need some different furniture, for example. If you could sort out the damp, would you be happy to stay?

you might qualify for a building grant from local council because of the damp - call them and ask.

Do you have any sort of buildings insurance that could cover the damp proofing? When you bought it what did the survey reveal?

Presumably you didn't buy it though, if it's been in your family for 150 years? Did you inherit it?

If it were me I'd do whatever I had to to get it sorted out, rather than move to a newbuild on an estate.

Is it listed?

oh god youre going to shoot me down now. the survery revealed bugger all because we got the cheapest one we could. we bought the house off my gran. it was a good price. she never had any of these problems i think because she didnt have any heating and there was only her in the house.
at some point in next 3 yrs or so we had planned to move as we need an extra bedroom.
i think major work wouldd be reqquired to sort the damp, as well as just the render. we simply cant afford to do any more. and dh has no time with work to be able to do any of it himself. arrrrgggggh.
its so damp now i am sat here feeling damp myself (and not in a good way ) in my bedroom where the wetness is.

no its not listed. i dont know why not but its not. i think perhaps to get any kind of grant on it it'd have to be listed. and it has been altered too much now for it to be listed now.

Good idea Fio

i think it would take a dehumidifier the size of the house to clear anything. we do have one somewhere. do i need to heat the house more do you think or will this make it worse? i suppose it will dry it out a bit.

My gut feeling is that no one would buy it because it sounds as if you have made the house very nice superficially but haven't addressed a fundamental underlying condition .

If you have a cob building then, presumably, you live in Devon or Cornwall? There are lots of specialist cob firms down there who will be able to advise you what to do to repair your home - try: www.devonearthbuilding.com/links.htm

I know someone who bought a completely ruined cob barn which he managed to save so it sounds as if your home can be too. If I were you, I would look into removing render myself - it's not a difficult job although boring and tiring but, as I say, there are lots of enthusiasts in the south west who will be able to give you much better advice. A lot of them are very small building firms and they might be prepared to reduce their quote if you or dh were to labour for them on site. They could even start one side of house, show you how it's done and, if you feel confident, you could finish the rest.

You need to ventilate house as well as heat it - try putting 50 quilts on bed at night and sleeping with windows open, that sort of thing. Always open windows immediately you have finished bath/shower. That should help a tiny bit but, essentially, you have got to sort the render out asap and the leak in the roof which needs addressing IMMEDIATELY. As other people have pointed out, £16k is a lot cheaper than moving and, hopefully, it will cost you less than that anyway.

lalalonglegs, thanks for that link. i have emailed them. feeling utterly utterly depressed . keep noticing bloody cracks in the walls everywhere as well now.

Do you have any comeback on the people who installed the heating system and the people who applied the render. Central heating should be designed for the house taking into consideration various things including the construction type. Also anyone who knows anything about construction knows that old houses like yours need to breath, so whoever put on the render should have made it breathable.

sadly i think it was probably my grandad who put the render on (and her died a long long time ago). tbh he wouldnt have thought of that at all. it would have been cheap and easy to do and he could do it himself. they didnt have any heating aside from one night storage thing. dhs cousin installed the heating at a cheap cost. thats giving us bother too. am waiting in all day today for the boiler repair man to come and fix it as that is leaking water all over the ruddy place too.

you bought this house 5.5 years ago at a 'good price' and you're worried about negative equity? .. have you been re-mortgaging every time the price went up

our house has more than doubled in value in the last 5.5 years .. so we can take a hit on it at current values and still walk away with money

get estate agents round and ask .. take their valuations with a 20K pinch of salt ... don't sit there quivering

do contact the council, my mother got a grant for work on her house due to the damp.

I would get some agents round and ask for an honest price in order to sell.If it is acceptable and they think they could get a buyer I would sell now as prices are going to be lower next yr as the financial situation in this country is dire atm.If you had the 16k work done would that solve everything?It does sound like the sort of house someone might just fall in love with but you need to market it to find out.

magrat... when we bought the house we paid £125 k for it. we now have a mortgage of £170k as we remortgaged twice, once to do it up and once to consolidate other debts. am keeping fingers crossed its worth about £250k (if we can get a buyer that is)- but thats not much really and not enough to get a 4 bed house which is what we really need.