Homes under the Hammer - are the budgets really all BS?

[MardyBum2]

Just watching Homes under the Hammer, a guilty pleasure as it's easier to see other people sorting houses, rather than sorting mine myself.

There's a house where they've replaced the boiler, kitchen, bathroom, full refurbishment, new windows, doors, etc, and spent £12k. And they had to get trades in for some things.

This is kinda typical of the costs quoted on this show, and I get the budget is low if you're DIYing it, but surely the materials alone would be well over that? How do they do it?!

I often wonder about this too!

And they dont take into account their own time and labour!

See I don't mind if they don't include labour and their time, as if they did, as a general rule of thumb that would double their budget. But the materials! Where can I find a brand spanking new kitchen bathroom glazing, let alone paint, and all the finishing bits for £10k? Perplexing.

It is possible if you're clever with where you source the fixtures/fittings & materials from and you can do the majority of work yourself. We fully renovated a 3 bed house last year for £10.5k with the trades (Electrician, Gas Engineer, & Plumber) cost coming in at £7.5k.

Some HITH episodes are really old. I saw one recently that I swear I first saw when I was feeding baby dd - she's 11 now!

Also worth noting that the Estate Agents valuations, don't always correlate with the actual price they sold for on the Land Reg/Rightmove. They also conveniently miss out a lot of costs and taxes from the "profit". I do feel that programme is responsible for sending a few people to semi-financial ruin, because it gives such a rose tinted inaccurate view.

I love HUTH. Wish they'd put it back in the 10 o clock slot though!

They also miss out on things like mortgage payments, mortgage interest, solicitors fees and utility costs whilst the property is being renovated/being sold.

Yes, its bobbins. I've done lots of renovation and ama careful budgetter, but typically would be looking at twice what they quoted.

Unless they used crap materials, or there was next to nothing that needed doing, I can't see how that's possible. It also discounts lots of other costs, as other posters have said. Renovations should not be undertaken lightly, especially by the inexperienced. Just rewiring this house cost about 10 grand or so- and there are often costs in a job you don't know until you start. In fact, I'd say unless a house is almost new and therefore not a reno job anyway, there will always be costs you can't anticipate. My rule of thumb is add up the costs you can identify, then double it. And even that's only if you're experienced enough to be able to look at a house and know what needs doing.

Probably BS. My husband watches a car program in the UK, where they buy a car, do it up and sell for a profit.
In one episode they showed the presenter buying a set of leather seats from.a scrapyard my husband friend runs.

His friend said they never bought the seats from him at all, just asked if they could film on his site, and the presenter loaded the seats into his suv for filming.