How much to do up budget 4bed?

[BluLagoon]

We are desperate to move from rented as we really need the space and this 4 bed has caught my eye, but concerned about cost of doing it up.

looks like new kitchen, bathroom, boiler (no heating on 1st floor?), possibly rewire? Needs painting and floors but am happy to that over time. How much is realistically needed to do the above on a budget?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/144438539#/?channel=RES_BUY

I would be a little careful with this one- looks like it was a 3 bed that has had the room in the middle split to make it 4 bed (the width of those rooms is a giveaway).

Have you seen the house? If the kitchen etc are livable and just not to your taste, that gives you time. Costs depend on finish, but a kitchen from.soemwhere like Homebase would probably be north of £10k with fitting.

Bathroom- again, depends on your plans. You can keep the costs down by not moving things around too much and making it a simpler plumbing task. Again, depends on finish etc, whether you want tiles or other finishes.

The heating would need to be fixed sooner rather than later if it is only on one floor, and is a little bit of a 'how long is a piece of string' question as it depends on what is currently there.

I would hope that the need for renovation has been priced I tonthe cost, but this isn't always true- do some research on other properties nearby to make sure.

Prices for work can vary around the country, so tricky to say. A rewire probably £3-7k, new boiler and heating upstairs the same again. Though there are cheaper options with heating. Oil filled rads for example, so I wouldn't rush to put in heating upstairs. New bathroom can be done relatively inexpensively, depending on your choices so maybe £1-5k. Kitchens again depend on your choices. If you want a new fitted one then anything from £4-40k. But you could consider free standing furniture, or making over what's there already which would be an awful lot cheaper. Second hand kitchens too. I've seen a beautiful kitchen recently which was made from drawer units bought at auction, so it was all mismatched and rustic, but this made it work.

I don't know the area but it looks like a great size with a lovely garden. Location is more important than condition if the price is affordable so if it's where you want to live then I'd been viewing and checking that nothing is actually broken. If it's all in good condition, just dated, it's probably a good bet. Checked that external windows and doors all open and close. Check the kitchen cabinet doors. Check the water pressure.

The two small bedrooms are really small, I agree it looks like it was one big bedroom split. Costs of kitchen and bathroom entirely depends on what you want. If you want really nice I would do it one bit at a time so you can afford what you want rather than a quick cheap do over which you will want to do again fairly soon. It all looks liveable, which is the good thing. I would do the heating first as that may make a mess of walls and floors running pipes and you don't want to making good on newly fitted/decorated rooms. Same with wiring if necessary.

If you do wiring put plenty of sockets particularly in the kitchen!

Price will be different in different areas: I'm thinking £8,000 bathroom, £10,000 kitchen, £6000 new boiler and some radiators, don't know about rewire - guess £5,000 plus flooring on top. If you shop around, you'll get varying prices so might be able to cut costs.

It reminds me of our first house together, everything needed doing but you could live in it and do it as you go along. We only moved for extra room and investment, but miss that house!

It needs full redecorating throughout, but it looks mostly cosmetic.

I'd be more concerned about the access and location. There's a lovely big garden out the back, but looks like shared access via a path and steps at the front? Where would you put the car? How easy is it to get in when you might have armfuls of kids and shopping?
It also looks rather cramped and dingy from the front, and being in that little hollow, and well-shadowed by other properties, I'd be thinking about possible damp.
The picture of the surrounding area they posted... It gives a bit "rough council estate" vibes...

Thanks, really helpful comments (yes to extra electrical sockets!). Makes sense that 3 beds split into 4 as 4 beds would normally be much more expensive here. No haven’t seen it yet but wanted rough idea of Costs to see if it would be in budget or not worth viewing at all. I tend to think probate properties will either be open to offers and sell quickly or hang around for ages.

So we moved into a house just like this, very very similar but a 3 bed towards the end of 2017 as first time buyers. South East. Prices will have increased.

We had zero budget for immediate improvements as we stretched to afford the house so we had to save and spend as we lived there and spent about 12 months sleeping on a mattress on the floor as we literally had no furniture(!)

We lived there for about 15 months before I had our first baby. 2 more kids have followed!!!

We are not tradies and have zero relevant experience or qualifications in DIY and aren't particularly good at DIY other than a can do attitude.

We did the kitchen ourselves buying units from selco and slabs of wood for countertops from some other supplier for a cost of about £2k and 2-3 days of labour (3 people, us and my Dad), not including planning and shopping etc.

Selco is/was meant to be for tradies which is why their stuff is cheaper but (probably still the case?) it seems to be pretty easy to create an account by providing any old details of your "business". Recommend selcos or similar if you are buying your own stuff.

We did a decent enough job of the kitchen however parts are a bit shabby / unfinished in particular the tiling (I chose tiny square, matt tiles - do NOT do this they are so hard to put up and so hard to clean - choose big shiny tiles or better pay someone who knows what they're doing!). Over years we replaced white goods as they broke down.

We paid for a full upstairs and downstairs rewire at a cost of £5-6k (in 2017). This was the cheapest we could find and the bloke obviously rushed around and little details aren't right like spotlights being not lined up at all etc, however happy enough as it was all we could afford. We stripped the carpets and wallpaper ourselves but got a plasterer to do the plastering in other rooms (most rooms in the house) at the same time as we got a fella in to replace the downstairs toilet (knocking through a cupboard and putting a shower in, tiling, paint etc) which was £8k.

We painted all the walls ourselves, which was a ballache. We got carpets fitted upstairs via carpet right which I think was £3k. Probably a rip off but we couldn't face doing any more ourselves and we were able to get them on credit because it's really horrible having bare floors covered in plaster dust. My husband laid wooden flooring (click flooring also from selcos) downstairs himself which is far from perfect but is "good enough".

We replaced, oiled/varnished and fitted all new wooden doors (also selcos) ourselves which was relatively cheap but again, more work.

Eventually went on to get the upstairs bathroom done as well I honestly can't remember how much but I want to say £5 or £6k?

Then we have had an expensive roof repair £8k, however we always knew this was coming as the roof was in a not great state on the survey. We managed to put this off for 6 years(!).

The garden we have really worked hard on ourselves it was no better than the one you've linked, but it's really decent now with mature shrubs etc. Quite poor for at least 2 years though.

It took 1 year for it to feel more like a home (painted, carpets, furniture etc) as we were having a baby we really needed these things(!). 3-4 years for the house to be okay/nice enough but this is cause we had to save for everything and also kept having children(!). It remains a work in progress as there are finishing touches we still haven't gotten around to (utility room is unfinished, some areas of skirting are not at all well done as we did this ourselves) and now things like the paint and kitchen etc really could use a refresh.

At this stage in life with 3 kids under 6 I would be very reluctant to take on such a project again, however it was worth it because of being able to afford a family sized home in a really nice area - I think of it as having saved us the stamp duty on an extra move not to mention building more equity in a more valuable house than we would otherwise have bought.

I'd guess from the photos that it needs insulation, rewire, plumbing, heating, kitchen, bathroom, flooring. I wouldn't buy it unless I had at least £40-50k for immediate fixes.

It looks like a nice house and in liveable condition. Sort of thing that you could happily live in and do up gradually as you can afford it - kitchen and bathroom look clean and functioning fine. I can see some areas of damp though (under LR window and under curtain in one of the bedrooms) so there will be some repairs to add to your list.