Anyone recently bought a fixer upper, what’s your experience so far and any regrets?

[Orchid090]

I’ve seen a property in an area I really like. Houses hardly pop up in that area. It is mainly elderly folk that have lived there for a long time. This also means the house still looks like it is in the 1950s and many things being dated.

I am tempted but a lot of people are telling me to leave it because fixer upper tend to cost more than you budget for and the price of materials and labour costs have skyrocketed. I’m unsure what to do so I’d love to hear other people’s experiences.

From reading the comments maybe I should walk away. I do love the area but if work costs more than the valuation of the house and a lot more than I budget for then I don’t know anymore. I also don’t have any DIY skills so the only thing I’d be able to contribute to is painting and tiling to that extent. I’m really gutted as I hardly see any houses in the areas I like popping up. I’ve been searching for just over a year and nothing I like or I get overbid by like 20k more from the highest bidder.

I see quite a few houses that have nice interior but then read the home report and it mentions semi/dated electrical system, original roof and old boiler and it makes me think what is the difference between these houses and the ones that are outdated and lived by an old lady for 60+ years?

I think it would help you to consider the long term. Much can be done in small chunks. If you would like to stay in that area for ten years or more, it's probably worth it. If you think you might want to move before then, probably not.

Personally I'd rather have the one loved in by the old lady. Probably cheaper and very little difference in the actual bones of the house. You don't want to rip up beautifully decorated rooms to replace electrics etc. You can usually see what needs doing with that type of house too. I bought one of those for my last house, built 1955 and lived in by the same people till I bought it in 2009. Coloured bathroom suite, back boiler, wood panelling the lot 🙈

Redecorating and putting in new kitchen bathroom carpets and windows is fun.

Rewriring and re plumbing is not fun because of the huge mess, snagging, and chaos

Avoid actual building work if at all possible because it takes forever, is messy and then years after it’s been done you’re still trying to get hold of the builder to ask why the extension’s new roof leaks

@HappiestSleeping I knowwwwwww right. Timber went absolutely crazy in 2021, rising 42.1% for planed wood from 2020.

It's settled down a bit now but in general the material cost rises, combined with the container shipping rises, have really hit small contractors. In bigger cities, Brexit has driven labour costs up. All together, you end up with customers who feel ripped off and builders who don't break even.

We bought our house in 2018. House itself is structurally sound, decent windows and doors, roof ok. But very outdated inside. We changed the boiler, done up garden and the driveway . The rest was planned for the 2020. Husband is a builder, so had this vision of what could have been done to the house- loft extension, full redecoration inside. And than Covid happened, and than war, and cost of living. So, plans for the loft extension been scrapped, it is just inside now. I have an occasional wobble, as it is massive amount of work, we are doing everything ourself and it is going to take forever. All my friends have nice houses, and I feel house shame sometimes, but I still love our house and we are not planning on moving anytime soon. I see it as adventure, and coming from Eastern Europe feel very blessed with what we have.

@meduskuka I agree on the house shame while it is happening. We are just over a year into a full remodelling and double extension. Moved out for 4 months when there was no plumbing but otherwise have lived in. It will cost hundreds of thousands by the end and both ends of our family works in property, we have choosen nice materials but most costs are unavoidable. Even disposing of rubbish is a major expense. Its also really dirty and destructive work and privacy is lost in the house. Tradespeople are very hard to locate and get a slot with. It tool about 3 years to get our build going. Massively time consuming tidying up, letting trades in, taking deliveries and making orders. Most of my childhood was taken up in major renovation and construction and this weekend I have been hovering up brick dust etc for hour long stretches at a time (no one else will do this for you) and oiling bannister and putting up fixings etc. It is exhausting, tomorrow all the trades will arrive again and mess it up. Picking vapes and bottles of lucazade and nails up in mud pit garden every day and they keep on coming. The house is going to be amazing but and i am never doing this again. We would not sell now for decades, houses are hard to find in our area and nothing at this quality of build as its a historic area. You have to really really want it

OP, unless I've missed it, you've only indicated a boiler that needs replacing? What other work obviously needs to be done?

Yes, of course it coudl be hiding a load of horrors - but that's true of any house. Friends bought a very smart house in a very smart part of London, but once they started doing (cosmetic) work it revealed that there were serious problems with the house - over the years they've had to rebuild one wall, sort out other structural stuff, etc etc. Nothing that would have been revealed by a survey. To a certain extent, that is the risk of house buying.

You can get surveys specifically for damp, structure, wood worm, etc. Just try to get them from independent surveyors (rather than companies that then provide remedial services as the latter will often inflate the issue to get your business rectifying it)

Plaster is cracking and uneven for ceiling and walls so it would need replastering. The ceiling may contain asbestos but with the plaster crack I’m unsure if over boarding and plastering over it is fine or if it needs to be removed (since it is disturbed?). The loft has loosened and cracked plasterboard with mould (possibly lack of ventilation although in the past there has been water ingress but roof has been repaired now) and materials used not up to the current regulation. I am not planning on using the loft as a bedroom or anything so at most just storage or won’t bother using it at all.

Rewiring I’m unsure of or know what to look out for as it is an electrical switch gear at the hallway. I am assuming I’ll need to rewire if it is from 1950s.

Windows and doors are old but I’d be looking to do them later on in the future.

Unsure about radiators and pipes. The pipes are of copper and PVC. Not sure if I am replacing boiler if it is best to also replace radiators and pipes or if that is necessary.

The rest is cosmetic such as bathroom and kitchen but I can live with it and do it all later on. Removing wallpaper and painting and flooring.

That is the work I can think of but not sure if there are any ones I have missed to do that aren’t as obvious.

Yeah I am thinking maybe independent surveyors for each area to look at rather than a level 3 survey or would it be best to have level 3 and other surveyors such as gas safe engineer, electrician etc?

That is the worry the unknown even with having multiple surveys! Maybe because it is outdated and as a fixer upper I expect things to be in the absolute worst state and more hidden issues than a “normal” house.

It might not be too bad I have found rotted floors and subfloors at times where damp was present and also woodworm. I jusy hate rennovation now but ours was an enormous project and we were already really time poor so that absolutely does not help. It is very expensive though now

We're 18m into ours. It's been messy and expensive and we've still got so much to do. We've had new boiler, radiators and pipework. Full rewire. New internal doors and bannister. Every room needed replastering, skirting boards, flooring and painting. New front door.

We're taking a break to build up our reserves, we still have to do the kitchen, bathroom, roof and windows.

@Orchid090 one thing to bear in mind is the more complex the survey the more likely issues will be raised which will put off your lenders. There are always unexpected costs when you pull apart an older house you are right about that. Its a risk to weigh up

We bought a fixer upper in 2013. We took every wall back to brick, whole house re plastered, new flooring, no lintels over the windows, new bathroom, some new radiators, garden complete jungle. Got to the stage where the kitchen needs doing but having a rest, plus haven’t quite decided what I want yet.

We’ve taken our time and my husband is very handy, only real tradesmen cost was the plastering and lintels. Fast forward 10 years after spending approximately 15k it is now worth double.

We bought a house as a rental investment and did a reasonable bit of work to it - new kitchen, added a downstairs WC and second shower, new boiler, replaced dated gas fire for a log burner and levelled the garden, removed a fish pond etc. also removed some really terrible artexing. We didn't have a particular budget for it and not sure what we've spent on it, but I would say there's always some kind of unexpected expenditure around the corner!

Thanks for the replies and food for thought. I understand we shouldn’t think about a house too much of an investment but more of a house to live in. But I would hate for it to result in more unexpectedly costly jobs to do and the amount of work I have put in ends up totalling up to more than the valuation of the house.

I am not looking to make money or for it to be a better deal than a newly renovated house. I am just hoping the cheaper price along with the work done will not be higher than cost of a house in walk on condition. But of course as mentioned most likely need to account for other issues. Maybe fixer upper isn’t for me… but then all houses may have issues whereas with fixer upper will be more visible. Ugh I keep cycling back and forth!

We bought a fixer upper last December. It's tough going, and has proven to be a lot more work than expected.

If you buy the house, will you need to move in straight away? That will make a big difference to your decision. We are living in our renovation and it is HARD. The amount of dust from all the work is just insane.

So far, we have replaced our entire central heating system (new boiler, relocated. All new pipework up to modern standards and brand new radiators throughout). We paid for designer radiators so this set us back almost £20k, but would have been almost £15k without them due to the work. This took 3 weeks to complete but may have been quicker if we weren't living there as they had to put floorboards back at the end of each day etc.

We have had the house partially rewired. Sockets were fine, but ceiling lights were unearthed. Not the end of the world, but would prevent any metal light fittings or downlights etc in the future. We also upgraded all our switches and sockets, and added lots more sockets while we were at it. This took 1 week and cost us £4k. We had a new consumer unit also, which cost us £600 IIRC.

On top of this, we have paid £900 to have all the chases in the wall filled, and then an additional £600 to have a ceiling overboarded & skimmed after we discovered potential asbestos. The ceiling had been wallpapered and this was found after removingt the paper. The ceiling had a big hole from when the warm air central heating was removed, so covering the whole thing over was an easier solution.

Bathrooms, Kitchen & Flooring are all on the 'later' list as they are just cosmetic and require more money than we have right now. If I wanted to, I could make reasonably cheap improvements to them but it's not top of the list.

We went into this house with £50k in savings, but the house has eaten it all up in various ways. All that gets us through is the fact that it really will be lovely when it's all finished, and we couldn't afford the size of house we wanted without making a compromise on condition.

Only you can make the decision on whether this house is 'worth' it, but I would say you and your partner (if applicable) need to be on the same page about it.

Also, definite yes for a Level 3 Survey. Ours gave us a heads up about a lot of the issues we have tackled.

I'd ask a builder to quote for it, but offer to pay for his time in doing the quoting. Ie ask him to visit the house and then spend however long it takes to put together a proper quote. Pay for the builder's time though.

I did accidentally. On the surface and according to the mid level but entirely pointless survey we had the house seemed fine but it has needed thousands of pounds worth of repairs since we bought three years ago.

Main issue is finding contractors. Everyone is sooooo busy and booked up for months. Don't expect to find a kitchen fitter that will fit you in in the next six months for example. And pray you don't need any emergency repairs!

I would also think about what sort of life you want to lead.

We have friends who are always working on a house project, and although it's a great house, it's just not worth it to me. They have three young children and spend their weekends doing DIY, there are up late in the evenings during DIY, the dad doesn't join them on family days out as he stays behind to do DIY. I would rather live in a modest house, living my life, spending time with my family and friends

We've always bought fixer uppers because my DH enjoys running renovations and it generally means we end up with a property that is worth way more than we put into it. I agree there's a degree of excitement and satisfaction in it. Especially when it's finished!

All of that said, renovations take time and there are ALWAYS unplanned costs - eg because the work takes longer than expected so you end up forking out for more labour, or something goes wrong and needs to be corrected before the project can progress, or the cost of materials increases, etc. So my advice would be to make sure you have significant headroom in your budget so you don't end up running out of money and being stuck with a half-finished project. Which is really the worth situation to be in.

The other issue is that living in a property while it's being done up is really challenging and not to be taken lightly. I would not recommend it if you are doing any kind of major work. Non-stop noise, dust, builders trudging in and out, radio music blasting (if you have multiple trades in at once, they will all play their respective radios at the same time!), electrics/boiler being shut off and on, etc. It's really draining mentally. Also, if you and your family are living on site, the work probably won't progress as efficiently as it would if you weren't there because the builders will always be having to skirt around you and your stuff. So yeah, depending on how much work you're doing you might need to move out for a while...

We've always used contractors/builders and have never attempted to do any big jobs ourselves, but I can only imagine how tough it would be trying to take a DIY approach.

I think unless you have a lot of cash to burn and some experience in renos, I'd proceed with the extreme caution!!

We've recently bought a dated but generally OK 50s house. We've had it rewired, plastering to cover up artex walls and ceilings, new carpet and wood floors, and we painted everywhere, and new radiators. Spent about £15k including all those little bits that add up! Luckily boiler is fine. And we've done a renovation before so we're fairly skilled, and have a lot of local trades contacts. I'd be very mindful of it, it's incredibly hard work and stressful, and nowadays doing a house up is unlikely to make you the money back when you sell.

I wouldn’t unless you really really want to do renovations.

I remodelled my favourite house and I really enjoyed the process until it came to the only bathroom! But I didn't need to do electrics, roof or plumbing. I had a contingency fund though because it needed replastering and some other bits. I did it as cheaply as possible (high end fittings but shipped around for labour).

I'm in a mid century home now and I had the electrics and boiler looked at prior to purchase. They are both modern. It needs a new kitchen, 2 new bathrooms, new windows and the extension sorting out. But it's clean and dry just very dated (not mid century unfortunately). I'm in the process of saving up. I still love it so much. It's quirky and serviceable.

if the property is a good investment you will know about when you register your interest/

if it is then the big boys will be circling around it as an investment opportunity. You could be competitive with experienced/ cash buyers situation.

you need to be on the ball if you want to snag an opportunity.