Cost of doing up a house SE13 Hither green

[sellersmarket]

Hey mumsnetters

Looking in Hither Green SE13 and the market is difficult at the moment. Nothing coming on and when it does getting snapped up! Thinking of buying a doer upper, but we have a baby and not sure how terrible an idea it is to do a whole place up?! Secondly no idea of cost -

This is going to be a 'how long is a piece of string' question, but roughly, from experience if anyone reading this has, how much would you need to spend on either of the below places to make them nice family homes?

Like I said, totally aware this is a difficult question but would be good to have a ball park vibe. Our max budget for buying the place and making it good is £680

my.matterport.com/show/?m=q7Nzt8A5u9q

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/121263314

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/109459571

Cheers for any advice!

I think it really depends on what you need/ want to do. If you’re thinking about an internal refurb, and changing windows etc, then I think you could definitely get the first one in under budget. However loft conversions will add to that and side return extensions can be horrifically expensive. We renovated about 10 years ago in a different part of London- large terrace- loft conversion and side return, complete redecoration, new bathrooms and kitchen, garden at the end, decent not high end stuff and I think it came in around £180k. If it were me I’d go for the first one, and try to keep some money aside to stay in an Airbnb for a couple of months. If you get a loft conversion or refurbish the upper floor you can move in once done with a temporary kitchen. It could be a lovely house and I think you’d get that one in under budget and then get the money back.

The first one is an auction so it will probably go quite a bit over the listes price and I wouldn’t buy a property that way unless I was quite experienced and was a cash buyer.
I’ve heard that it costs around £500 per square metre to update a property but you’d need to factor in more for extensions and the like. I have also heard that it’s hard to find tradesmen to do work at the moment.

What's wrong with the Harvard Road property? The flooring may not be to your taste, likewise the kitchen but getting the flooring redone throughout with something fairly ordinary e.g. Gala carpet, maybe even a Gala stripe on the stairs and a different laminate in the kitchen might cost about £4000 for supply and fit (based on a recent quote for a similar sized property). A more modern kitchen e.g from IKEA could be achieved for £1000 ish if you could make use of their 8 cabinet package although that doesn't include appliances.

The house on Elthruda needs a whole lot more than cosmetic work doing. We recently paid approx. £7000 to have a relative's similar sized property replastered, new shower room is costing £10,000, complete rewire was about £12,000. Can't remember how much the roofing and various other things have cost but it's been well over £100,000 for a total refurbishment and that's on a detached property not in London i.e. no access issues or having to carry materials through the house, no parking permits needed, no party wall agreements etc. That was also a vacant property so could be gutted but costs would have increased if relative had needed to live there whilst the work was going on.

Personally, I'd go for the Harvard house. I prefer the location of the street and it doesn't get much traffic as it's a no through road. There are likely to be fewer hidden costs with that house and it'll be possible to move in immediately whereas the Elthruda one could take a long time to sort out.

Elthruda Road puts you in catchment for Brindishe Green, one of the Brindishe federation schools - excellent schools and extremely sought after. The catchment for Brindishe Manor is 268 metres, to give you an idea!
Harvard Road is further from the 'naice' bit of HG. It's still fine up on HGL, but not as nice.

Baby aside, Depends entirely on whether you are willing/able to do things yourself and what level of finish you want.
That said, the second one looks like a nice family home already? New kitchen and it'll be sorted

@sellersmarket

Hey mumsnetters

Looking in Hither Green SE13 and the market is difficult at the moment. Nothing coming on and when it does getting snapped up! Thinking of buying a doer upper, but we have a baby and not sure how terrible an idea it is to do a whole place up?! Secondly no idea of cost -

This is going to be a 'how long is a piece of string' question, but roughly, from experience if anyone reading this has, how much would you need to spend on either of the below places to make them nice family homes?

Like I said, totally aware this is a difficult question but would be good to have a ball park vibe. Our max budget for buying the place and making it good is £680

my.matterport.com/show/?m=q7Nzt8A5u9q

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/121263314

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/109459571

Cheers for any advice!

Thanks all! Just to clarify nothing wrong at all with Harvard road, know we'd def have to do less with it, just interested in what costings we'd be looking at. Really appreciate everyone's feedback so thank you so much!

I live locally, in a similar house to the Harvard Road one. I spent under 50k doing mine up and that included a new boiler, kitchen, loft room and moving the bathroom upstairs.
I squeezed my bathroom into the 12x8 room with a velux... a bathroom with no window is grim! So I have 2 doubles, a single and a loft room (no building regs as ceiling too low). You can get that Harvard one for about 580 as been on forever!

@dewl

I live locally, in a similar house to the Harvard Road one. I spent under 50k doing mine up and that included a new boiler, kitchen, loft room and moving the bathroom upstairs. I squeezed my bathroom into the 12x8 room with a velux... a bathroom with no window is grim! So I have 2 doubles, a single and a loft room (no building regs as ceiling too low). You can get that Harvard one for about 580 as been on forever!

Thanks dewl! Yes. Seen it's been on since June... wonder if something wrong with?

It's pebble dashed, north facing garden, the windows have the dreaded crisscross pattern and the bathroom is in an odd place with no window.
Enough to put most people off!

@dewl

It's pebble dashed, north facing garden, the windows have the dreaded crisscross pattern and the bathroom is in an odd place with no window. Enough to put most people off!

V true - hadn't noticed any of those things 🤣

😅

If I had 600 to buy in the area, I would buy this..

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/117806081

I bought my first house on Brightfield. It's a lovely road. There is an entrance to Manor House Gardens a few metres away and it's a 15 minute walk to Blackheath!
You'd get a good price for it as it's been on for a while. Lots of the same houses have loft conversions, so I expect the head height is good.