Buying a 'project' house?

[magickate]

We have a viewing booked on Thursday, our house isn't even on the market yet but valuer is also booked.
We currently live in a 3 bed terraced bought as a new build 7 years ago. It's a bit too small for us now & although it's a nice area it's a trek to the kids schools.

The house we're going to view is bigger but only a 2 bed. It has a conservatory we would want to take down and have a 2 story extension built in its place. Does anyone have experience of requesting planning permission?

It needs a lot of other work too. New bathroom & modernising throughout. It has a weird area on the side we would also want to develop into a proper utility although that's not priority. But it's in the right area and is the right price, once all the work is done it would be the perfect house for us.

Are we mad to consider moving from a nice 3 bed to a run down 2 bed. We have no trade skills ourselves so would be relying on professionals for everything other than cosmetic stuff. We can manage flooring & tiling ourselves too but the thought of living in chaos for the next 18months is scary.

Price wise we'd need a home improvement loan but we can manage the repayments as the house in 50k less than our current one. Are loans like these quite easy to get?

[chrisxal]

I love to watch programmes like Homes under the Hammer and sit here wonder how the hell they put in new windows, a new kitchen, new bathroom, lay a new drive, decorate throughout etc etc on a budget of c£10k, I don't know where they find builders who would do all that work for that price. Last year we knocked down a conservatory to build an extension for a new kitchen, I started with a budget of £25k, I will cut a very long story short as we ended up having to re-wire, replace drains etc etc and my final bill was £49k. I am only telling you this so you are prepared for lots of hidden costs when upgrading a property.

[Pino_Spetzberg]

Originally Posted by magickate

Are we mad to consider moving from a nice 3 bed to a run down 2 bed.

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Yes.

On the basis described anyway.

[Feebee2]

Do you know any builders etc? Or have good recommendations?
The work itself isn't too difficult was is near to impossible in our experience is getting someone to do it then coordinating all the trades.
For a premium you could get a building company who'll do the whole lot.

[magickate]

Thank you, that's all helpful!

Originally Posted by Pino_Spetzberg

Yes.

On the basis described anyway.

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There is a little more to it, a main one being where we live now our catchment school for DS next year is awful. No way I'd let him go. House we're looking at is in catchment for where his sister goes. It was a new school when she started which is unfortunately now oversubscribed. Having a sibling there isn't enough for him to get in especially while living on the other side of town.

At the moment I'm studying for an honours degree in social work. I need to change my job in time to continue for September which will mean me working a 9-5. At the moment I do shifts and pick the kids up every day, when I change I've got no way for the to get home and it's in no way walkable. The house we're looking at is a 10minute safe walk which lots of their friends also do.

[catherinesian]

Having been through a huge extension and renovation project, I would recommend not living there whilst it's being done, for your own sanity. We said next time we would buy / hire a caravan and put it on the driveway, as that would have been better!

In terms of planning, it sounds like it will need it but you shouldn't find it too difficult to get. Ours was knocked back once as they wanted us to reduce the depth of the extension by 1m but on re-submission went through fine. We extended out the side and a bit out the front.

We extended in 2016 and sold the house in 2019 and moved but it was still worth it as we made a lot of money and we wouldn't have been able to afford the house we have now otherwise.

ETA we didn't get out a home improvement loan, we extended the mortgage as the rate was much cheaper, so something to look into

[tspill]

I think that before answering, you need to fully understand your motivation for doing what you suggest? Only then can you assess whether it is sensible or mad.

One thing is that it will cost WAY more than you (or anyone else) things. Get it costed and add 50%.

[Guest]

It would depend on where you are and how exacting you are. We're in Aberdeen and have been at ours for over 4 years now and it is still in a right state. You cannot get a good tradesman for love nor money up here. The ones you can get don't listen and give you what is easiest for them, no care or attention to detail at all. We bought an old place with a passion to restore it but we've given up and my husband is finishing it and it's going straight back on the market. It's taken years off our life and made us both ill with stress and that's with no building or extension. I would say don't do it!

[magickate]

Glad it worked out for you in the end Catherinesian and sorry to hear you've had such problems Fluzz. Reliabiity of tradesmen does seem to be a reoccurring problem.

We have a builder in mind, local company, has done great work for friends. They'd be our 1st go to.

Thanks for all the input so far. We have a 2nd viewing booked for Saturday.

[Procrastinator]

We have bought "project houses" twice now.

I totally agree with the "it will cost more than you think" warning.

First house we bought. Spent about £90k on renovations / extension and a lot of our own time and effort. And we basically got our money back when it was sold 3 years later. Problem was a combination of overpaying originally (not expecting it to cost as much as it did to do the work) and also doing work to a higher standard than we should have done. We were going to stay for 10ish years and renovated it that way. Instead we stayed for 3. Had we done nothing to the house we probably would have made £50-£60k profit.

But, lessons learned. The next time round we knew what we were letting ourselves in for, but the problem is sellers had no clue. So they would look down their road, see a similar sized house sell for say £400k, then say, well ours needs a bit of work, so maybe £380k.

Problem would be the house might need full redecoration, new carpets, new boiler, new bathroom, new kitchen and new windows (to bring it to the standard of that £400k house). But that £20k discount they had in their head was never enough. Took ages to find somewhere that ticked the boxes and had a sensible price. Though even now i think we overpaid a little still - though this house is probably the next 20 years so that is ok.

I am glad we did it, but wow it was tough both times.