How to renovate to live in and make easily sellable?

[That70sHouse]

We are moving to a 1970s house that needs a fair bit of work. Much of it is cosmetic but we are also hoping to extend slightly and also convert the garage.

We are only going to stay in this house for max. 3 years. It’s for a variety of complicated reasons that I won’t go into, but not moving isn’t an option (obviously moving house costs money so I’m expecting someone to suggest just don’t bother moving now if we’re going to sell again in 3 years). We ideally need to make back the money we’ve spent on stamp duty (and on the work too, obviously) and maybe a little extra to get some more equity for our next move.

So my question is.. what things are worth spending on and what isn’t? I have already thought that it’s not worth spending on expensive wallpapers and specific curtain fabrics etc which future buyers may want to change. We are going to paint everywhere (walls and ceilings) a warm shade of white to start off with and add some feature colour in the kids rooms, a bit later on I might add a bit more colour elsewhere but we have a deep red sofa and can add colour that way so it’s not completely bland.

But also we do have to live in the place for 2-3 years. What will we actually get our money back on? If I buy for example Crittal style doors, or Miele fitted appliances, or Karndean flooring… does any of that add any value or is it money down the drain?

Similarly when looking at what we do with the space, I can’t decide whether to go for rejigging the layout for extra wow factor (which obviously costs more money) or whether to keep it simple and just work with what we have. When I speak to architects they give amazing ideas but no real indication of the cost or whether any of it will add any value. When I speak to builders they can tell me how much work will cost but again, not how much value it adds. Estate agents just seem to say what they think you want to hear.

any advice or tips please? Thank you

Renovation costs have gone up a lot now though and the housing market is less bouyant so where as you may have just got lucky and made money within a 2-4 year period because you managed to buy in an up and coming area or where the market was good, that is a lot less likely now.
What work did you do to the last two houses? Are you buying at auction?
Have you costed out the basics stuff which definitely needs doing? sounds like a big project so wiring, heating skimming and decorating throughout, and then you mention an extension? I would guess getting someone external in to do that will be at least 100,000? Probably more with an extension. Will the house be worth that much more after?
This is why where are lots of renovation project houses on the market at the moment, because a renovation company can't make money on them and so they ignore them.

Apologies. Just read your reply properly. What will you be doing for 10,000?

We've renovated four houses, not for anyone other than us and because that's all we could afford and each was our home too, so you have to be able to live with the work as you do it and deal with the fallout when you find 'stuff' you would never have dreamt that property owners do, like fill their chimneys with foam, block out a loft that can't take the weight, concrete in a cistern!

What did we look at and why? All of the below at the very least, as all cost and they are the big money items and would impact on us buying or us having to factor in costs.

The neighbours, how their properties were maintained, walls, drives, bus routes and this is the worst house in the best location scenario, as the best house in the worst location is an issue!
Windows, doors, efficiency - windows are not cheap!!
Parking - space around the home - either there or it isn't and parking is very important
Electrics / Plumbing
Kitchen / Bathroom and quality of fixtures / worktops / appliances possibly
Brickwork, cladding, guttering, roof
Quality of fixtures and fittings and age not an issue if the bones were good
Floors, did they move, squeak, flex
Noise from upstairs, outside
Damp, ground not built up, drainage
Boiler
Artex!
Decorating never occured to us, that's the cheapest fix, and we've moved into a purple palace, a 70s time warp, one that was so bland that you wondered if anyone lived there... decoratings easy, poor quality fixtures and fittings, flooring hiding issues, damp isn't!

As for making money, we did make some, but when you cost in our labour (we had no option but to do it ourselves and learned on the way), every weekend for years digging, decorating, running pipes, laying new floorboards, reclaiming flooring.... not that much and if we'd had someone in to do the work we'd be out of pocket for sure. Making money on property now is more luck than judgement in many instances and if you do make some brilliant, but I'd no longer count on it if you are paying for trades or simply brightening up a house.

We are doing it in two stages. Initially spending about £10k on essential works and general tarting up (decoration throughout, some nee carpets, repaint the garage, clear gardens). The house has been well maintained generally so doesn’t need a new boiler or roof and the bathroom is fairly recent with a decent shower a plain white suite. If we wanted to we could at a stretch make do with the current kitchen if we got new worktops and doors as the units themselves are fairly decent quality solid wood. It just all looks quite tired and was in a terrible state for photos hence the price.

Then we have an additional 50-60 to spend on it at some point later in the year.

In a 70s house you usually get good internal space, good gardens and big windows so lots of light. They are showing their age though now and will likely need new heating systems and rewiring. These are the expensive things that buyers want because they are costly and messy to have done when you are living in it. We're halfway though our top to tail renovation 1960s house, every surface needed updating but we aim to live here until retirement so it's a long term investment.
If you're not planning on living there long term, you don't know what your potential buyers would like. It easier to stay plain with everything in good working order.

We ideally need to make back the money we’ve spent on stamp duty (and on the work too, obviously) and maybe a little extra to get some more equity for our next move.
So my question is.. what things are worth spending on and what isn’t?
I'm no property expert but do lurk on these threads. One thing that I have noticed is how Rightmove has changed attitudes. People can now see the history of the selling of the house, they can access the photos of what it looked like when you bought it.
There is a common reaction to say "I can see that they paid £X for the house only Y years ago and they now want to sell for £Z. The increase isn't worth it! They've only applied a lick of paint!!"

So, psychologically, you need to make a visible, photographical difference. Re-wiring etc may make sound sense but it doesn't have the emotive pull. You want to go for 'heart over head'.
Also if you are one of a line of identical houses, you want to create some USP that will make buyers choose you rather than No 32 down the road.

This was exactly my initial thinking. It needs some “wow” and while a lot of people know that spending on insulation and electrics makes sense, the place can still look dull and unappealing. People are saying it doesn’t need to be Instagram worthy - and I agree that it shouldn’t be Instagram worthy but have a condemned boiler - but houses that look nice sell for more money and sell quicker and get buyers competing which increases offers etc.

I guess I was also wondering about the value of extensions.. is it worth borrowing more to add square footage or do we just keep the footprint as it is and make the best of what we’ve got?

So from what you have said you are not going to touch the electrics, heating or insulation?

New windows will make the house look nice, will improve kerb appeal but I don't think you will get more than you spend on them back.

New bathroom or kitchen again will sell the house quickly but you won't get back what you spend.

Maybe you could be more clever with space? So maybe add a laundry cupboard? Make sure there is lots of storage for family things like a large coat and shoe cupboard. Well organised kitchen storage. Is there space to add a pantry?
Still not sure these will increase the house price but they might make it easier to sell.

Is the bedroom space and downstairs balanced? Is there a box room which could be made a bit bigger maybe?

We will maybe need to replace a couple of the older radiators but the overall system is fine. Insulation is also fine, it’s EPC rated C. The electrics are ok as they are but it will be one of those things where as soon as anyone touches them, they have to make them up to current standards so I think they’ll put in a new consumer unit.

There is currently a double garage which is prime for conversion. We’d also have the option to extend over the garage but I’m not sure we can afford to do that without borrowing loads more. I think the house does need it though, it’s slightly bigger downstairs than upstairs and then if we extend the garage it will be even more unbalanced. It’s currently a 4 bed with two doubles and two singles and one bathroom. There’s a downstairs loo which I think we might turn into a storage cupboard and then put a proper bathroom downstairs in the converted garage. We’d also add a utility room and study. Need to be really clever with our spending to get all that for £60-70k total spend though (as well as decoration, new carpet upstairs and tidying up the garden but we will do all the painting and gardening ourselves)

If you take the downstairs loo out you will be breaking building regs. You aren't allowed to take downstairs loos out now once they are in
Sounds like an extra upstairs loo or shower room might add value of you can fit one in without losing a bedroom

Surely we can take out a downstairs loo if we are then adding a toilet in a new downstairs bathroom? So there would still be a downstairs loo?

The only way we could fit in an extra bathroom is if we extend over the garage which is probably not going to be affordable in our budget. There is currently a sink in the master bedroom, and we could probably add stud walling to square off that area to have an ensuite with toilet and sink but there wouldn’t be room for a shower. Do you think that would be worth it? Might also not have a window but we could add an extractor fan as it’s on an outside wall.

Don't convert the garage or at least leave one usable garage that can fit a large car (estate, Land Rover or similar). Garages are hard to come by these days. We're having a mare finding a house with one!

You've got to be realistic that a you can spend all you want and still lose every penny. There is no guarantee that what you do will add the value you want for the current costs of construction work.

And yes, I'd go for nicer looking radiators every time - they don't cost much more to buy and the same to install them. I hate hideous radiators.

Maybe add a floor plan here of the existing property and your planned changes?

It's fine to move a downstairs toilet, in our house the toilet in the cloakroom was removed and a shower room was put in a better location and it was all approved. And we have a cloakroom for coats which is really useful with 3DC.

What you should do is upgrade all the boring basics like insulation, electrics, and heating and don't make any out there expensive decorating decisions. But the way to make the most money is to ignore all that, paint in a neutral colour and style it up for sale. And for that reason I would never buy from a developer. One of the biggest reason for buying our current house was the fact that the owners had lived in it for 20 years and had maintained the property and upgraded different rooms regularly. So we moved into a house with a kitchen, one bathroom and a boiler that were less than 5 years old plus a bathroom that was about 10 years old and a third that was about 20 years old. Parts of the house had new electrics, parts had older electrics (we upgraded them), the back had recent double glazing, the front had old double glazing. All the rooms were in reasonable decorative repair so we could live with them and decorate in our own taste bit by bit. We knew things hadn't been done on the cheap.

Moving it is fine. You just can't remove and not replace. Quite a few people don't like ensuites so it would be worth thinking that through before you commit to it.

My friend converted his garage into a really high spec kitchen, removed walls and created the most amazing lounge diner but it cost him £60k!

With my favourite house I added value with a new kitchen, bathroom and drive. It was all high spec but I was living there for a while after the work.

Supposedly kitchens and bathrooms add the most value.

An estate agent can’t really say whether a decision will add 10k- it’s more does that decision (downstairs loo/extension) open you up to a bigger field of buyers. I live in a semi detached 3 bed (one box room). I could put 100k into the downstairs but it’s never going to make that back as there is no way to add another bedroom so it will always be a small 3 bed. That excludes bigger families/those with teenagers etc. If I could do something to get an extra bedroom then I might make money back as I’m open to a bigger pool of potential buyers.

I bought a 70s house last year which had been totally renovated by its Essex builder owner (who lived in it). He’d done such a shit job of everything, especially the electrics and the plumbing, that I’ve had to totally gut the house and start from scratch. It’s cost well over £100k. He was trying to make money whilst doing it on the cheap.

so if you are renovating, please do a decent job of the basics (plumbing, electrics, flooring, heating, windows) Decorating is easy to change.

Forgive me if you know this already, but:

To convert a garage and install a bathroom/loo, you might need planning permission (depending on area) and you will certainly need Building Regs approval. And modern Building Reg standards can be pricey to meet.

Many garages do not have strong foundations and most have only single-skin walls and sometimes asbestos in roofs. Also, they may/may not be convenient for connecting proposed new facilities to existing sewage/waste water pipes.

1970s houses are becoming fashionable. As previous poster says, they often stand on large plots and have spacious rooms and big windows. I don't think you're planning to do this this, but please don't - like a speculative builder - rip out all original features. If you can, try to work WITH them and restore them if need be.

Just coming back onto this thread as our project has now started and I’m needing to make a lot of decisions about kitchen and bathroom. In the end we decided to add a utility and second reception room by converting the garage and still maintaining a small garage/storage area. We are also knocking the kitchen through to the lounge/diner to make an open plan kitchen/dining/living area and turning the downstairs loo into a full bathroom.

I’m just not sure what we should be going for in terms of kitchen and bathroom. I think buyers at 700k+ will expect a decent kitchen. But are the mid range ones actually any better quality than budget options? We’re looking at Howdens. Don’t think we can afford quartz worktops so thinking oak instead. Or possibly compact laminate if we can find a fitter. Also not sure about flooring or what range of bathroom to look at, is Victorian Plumbing that bad?

We are on our 2nd Howdens kitchen, last one fitted 12 months ago. I would say there is no difference but I am no expert.

I would look at DIY kitchens. It might mean you have enough for quartz worktops after all. The units come assembled so less work for the fitters so you save on that too.

I’ve heard only good things about DIY kitchens and from tradesmen too.