Never owned property before, how much should I expect to pay for these reno works?

[Somethingsgotthagive]

Properties we are considering within our budget often require some work. We won't have a big budget after purchasing (probably 5-8K left in cash but then the ability to save about £1K per month or more), would we be mad to consider a property that needs:

• a new kitchen (small, like 2x2m size or so)
• new floors (2 bed property so quite small, around 70 sqm in total)
• repainting and tripping wallpaper (although we are hoping to do this ourselves)
• a lot of work in the garden + eventually new fencing, although not a priority straight away

I appreciate prices will change massively depending on materials etc; I'd say an ikea type of kitchen and maybe engineered wood flooring + tiles in the kitchen.

What should we expect to pay for all of this?

It's something to consider and worth getting a separate survey on though.

We didn't re-wire the whole house, however we did for the kitchen as we changed the whole layout and the kitchen wiring was quite old. It is something to factor

The op never even asked about any wiring / plumbing 🙄.

Yes I know but it's just something to consider that might need doing.
We were not going to originally but we did end up having to

We noticed. Immediately.

Which is concerning. If a property needs a new kitchen it's likely plumbing and wiring are going to be a consideration too, they generally age our at similar times.

You are not talking about a renovation - the points you describe are just interior decoration and garden work. The kitchens and floorings may be perfectly useable in the properties but not to your taste which is perfectly understandable. So at some point you will want to change them.

My advice is, unless this is going to be a forever home, do not overspend on anything, so a kitchen from Howdens or Ikea would suffice. Tiling for small areas will not cost too much. Flooring, see if there are floorboards you may wish to keep exposed and use rugs, instead of carpets.

The garden, I would spend a summer and winter in the house first before doing any major changes to the garden, you can then see where the sun is and which areas you like the most to maybe add some seating.

Your survey will tell you lots of things such as check the wiring, check the heating, check the roof etc etc. Unless the house is very old or shows a very obvious problem the surveys are normally not too much to worry about. Spend £100 getting an electrical check done, ask the vendors for the all the heating boiler services and ask if they can get a service done unlessone has been completed within the last 12 months.

If you really are buying a renovation then there may be a whole load of other issues to think about!

• £8K for kitchen (units, white goods and fitting)
• £1.5K for kitchen tiling
• £3.5K for flooring
• Paint: we'd like to do it ourselves and just spend a few 100s on paint and tools

id be absolutely amazed if you can get a kitchen including white goods and fitting for 8k. Have you got plumping, electrics or anything else to do there? Does it need plastering once you rip the old kitchen out? How’s the boiler?

you can get kitchen tiling for much cheaper than 1.5k. It’s easy enough to do it yourself. Obviously if you want the most expensive tiles and you want them floor to ceiling that’s different

flooring - depends what you want. If you got laminate and fitted it yourself in a few rooms and shopped around for carpets you could get it for much less. If you want wooden floors throughout then obviously more expensive.

paint I think you could do for £300 including equipment. Cheaper if you went for cheaper colours. Again obviously if you want to do the whole house in f&b and have someone else do it for you you’re looking at a lot more

whatever you think it’s going to cost add a few thousand. There will always be an unforeseen issue, or something you didn’t realise would need doing or cost as much as it does, or a dodgy builder, or something that costs more than you expected or a more expensive thing you just ‘have’ to have.

garden will cost you thoouusands.

youre just describing cosmetic changes though. Are they actually necessary if you don’t have much money spare? Can you just give it a clean and live in it for now and see what actually needs doing. If they ‘need’ doing I’d expect there’s actually a lot of other things that need doing that you’re not seeing right now, like roof, boiler, radiators, rewire, windows etc.

OP, there are lots of variables from the posters above.

The kitchen fitters will check the electrics for the kitchen, and may insist on rewiring the socket circuit and/or the cooker circuit if they are not happy with what's there. But a 25yo house shouldn't need it unless something has gone badly wrong. For a tiny kitchen like that, I'd allow £5k.

For floor covering, there are two things to bear in mind. When you strip off the old coverings it depends what you find underneath. Hopefully the ground floor will be nice dry concrete and the upper floor will have undamaged fibreboard panels. They should also be ok after 25 years.

Then the cost of floor coverings and underlays vary massively depending on quality and materials.

I'd assume a bit more for floor coverings, and have a contingency of 20% for the unexpected. So 15k - 20k.

Leave the garden until next year.