If buying a house that needs a full and massive make over, would you.....

[Thankyouandgoodnight]

The aim is to buy a substantial family home....

Spend up to your absolute max possible budget just to get the biggest house that you possibly could and then get the work done as and when you could over a couple of years.

Or

Buy a cheaper smaller house so that you could get the work done asap and move in to it?

I agree that it is cheaper to do the bulk before you move in if possible.Builders can get on with it and you do more creative things as sometimes if you are living in teh mess one more wall down is too much to bear and you compromise and don't really get the house you want as you can't bear the upheaval.

smaller option, my dp bought a house that was partly left to him in a will that needed a lot of work doing with it. that was three years ago, we currently have a kitchen in our dining room, no carpets anywhere, no wallpaper anywhere, our bathroom is not actually fitted although it is now in the bathroom as opposed to the dining room so that is progress i suppose.

when he bought it i dont think he realised just how much work and money would be needed to get it done. he had promised that it would be done before we had a baby dd2 is one year.

there are lots of things you may not have considered when looking at the house there will be more than just decorating if it is an old house, is there central heating? ours would have cost around 2.5k, double glazing? 3k, rewiring? total house cost us 1.2k but that was through a friend it would have been around 3k otherwise and that involves having to rip out parts of the walls so you wouldnt be able to decorate anywhere without that doing

has it been damproofed? ours had we found the invoice in the house that was over 1k ten about 7 years ago so god knows how much it would be now. lead to copper piping? ours was £150 but also through a friend who did it very very cheaply, that involoves pulling up the floor so again no decorating untill that has been done.

what condition is the roof in? floorboards? loft insulation?

the costs i have given here are for a small house and we have a lot of friends who work in the building/plumbing industry so have had a lot done v cheaply.

nor have i anniemac!I tend to live in it and take down walls.We have an opportunity to stay in rented this time and i have been considering moving straight in and saving the rent but i think ds and dp would die

I think a fairly big thing is that you both have to be motivated to do this, and both have the willpower to hang on in there when the dust gets too much and do have that "Oh my, what have we done" (moment or few). It can be one step forwards, ten steps back, but the opportunity to make a house a home will repay for the blood, sweat, tears and laughter that are shared along the way. I wouldn't spend max budget, I'd never spend max budget, buying a big or small, old or new house. But certainly, now slooowly working our way through updating our Victorian lady, we'd happily do it all again (but more money for the jobs would be useful!).