Owning your own home

I didn't do for mine and didn't have too many issues.

Having said that, we were lucky because we were the second flat to move in and the builders were on site for the next month.

Have you been in to look at it much whilst it's being finished?

40k?
needs a new bathroom and kitchen. you could spruce it up for 10k.
i'd be more concerned with the neighbours, noise from the road and the lease left on the flat. not to mention the communal areas and whether there is any arrangement for that. not sure how it works for warner flats. end of the day, immediate risk to price fluctuations are only felt if you are in it for the short term. if you have a >5 year outlook i'm sure you'd prefer to pay slightly more now than rent for another 5 years and wait for the ideal place which everyone else (and the pensioners with easy access to their cash after April 6th are in the market for).

id hate to see what your place will look like if you think you can get an acceptable kitchen and bathroom for 10k.

new kitchen for that place, unless you like skip diving, will cost a minimum of 8k - probably closer to 10 if you are doing it properly.

new bathroom, again, yeah you can get something shite for a few k but if you are doing it properly, i'd imagine it will cost 5 or 6k there as well.

the damp might be caused by many things but I would be budgeting for new windows too, again, it'll cost what it costs, but probably the thick end of 5k as well.

replastering, damp proof course, rewiring, you arent going to get any change out of 7k there either. so now were up to 28k.

odds and ends will crop up that need doing, and you'll probably want new flooring as well - another 2k or so there. so now youre in for 30k.

so you spend 265k on buying it, probably over 30k making it into somewhere you actually want to live and enjoy and not just exist, with the SDLT and fees it'll owe you 300k.

I'm happy to put my neck on the line and say when the artificial supports currently in place are removed - that flat will not be worth 300k. buy it as a home by all means, but dont think that there is easy money to be made by buying it and throwing some magnolia emulsion around, because there isnt.

It needs a fair amount spent on it but it's appropriately priced for the style of property and the area. Good luck trying to get anything not a bit shabby for 300k in Walthamstow

Didn't prince perch just spunk 80 grand on a kitchen or something? His opinion is therefore invalid

id hate to see what your place will look like if you think you can get an acceptable kitchen and bathroom for 10k.

new kitchen for that place, unless you like skip diving, will cost a minimum of 8k - probably closer to 10 if you are doing it properly.

Buy in the sales and do as much prep work as you can and I reckon a £5k bathroom is totally feasible. It's an old Victorian maisonette, we're not after a hotel bathroom here

We're trying to get a kitchen for less than £4k. Thanks for the support!

^ You'll do it fine. Princeperch's numbers are probably right if you just want to get a firm to give you an all-in price, but if you shop about, buy the cabinets, tops and appliances separately then find a fitter you'll get something perfectly ok for £4k.

We're getting a Benchmarx kitchen fitted by the fitter we have, the price came to less than £4k including tops, and we are sourcing our own cheaper dishwasher and cooker hood and buying a cooker separately.

My sister had a basic B&Q IT kitchen fitted about 10 years ago, which has aged fine despite her having let out her house for a few years in the mean time.

Neither kitchen will look like a posh showroom kitchen, but who needs that in a 1.5 bed terrace in E7?

Also we paid £1.5k for the bathroom (plus the suite bought at trade and the tiles) and it looks how we wanted.

Haters gonna hate.

I mowed my own lawn yesterday.

Euph?

We made the amateur mistake of submitting an offer on Saturday afternoon, this is going to be a very long Sunday.

These are Norwich prices but my brother's just renovated a two-up-two-down terraced house for £10k. Replastered halfway up the walls, insulation under ground floor, ceilings pulled down and a hundred year's of dust removed, rewire and new kitchen and bathroom. Central heating was ok.

Dredging up the tv thread when we moved into this place we phoned up sky first. They said we'd need to phone up BT to install the phone line, once that was in (2-3weeks) give them a call and they'd be around 2-3 weeks after we called them so a month in total.

We then phoned up virgin, we were in one of there areas and could be round in three days and install phone, tv and internet.

3 years later still with virgin and phone them every now and again to improve the deal. They popped in a new TiVo box and out our old box in the bedroom for nowt.

Technically this is the shortest Sunday of the year...

Good luck with the offer! :)

I mowed my own lawn yesterday.

Likewise

I just got a quote for central heating replacement. Over £5k, half of which is labour. I need to go and lie down for a while, I think.

@Princeperch thinks u have to spend top dollar to spec out a kitchen in a small warner flat. Not everyone wants or needs 20k kitchens. A bit of money spent in the right places will sort that flat out.

@well_is_it
How did you get on with the viewings then? Did the 1.5 bed need 80k or whatever it was @princeperch was going on about?

I think @princeperch is being fairly reasonable. He only suggested approximate values, and at the end of the day, it's up to you what you fit. I can guarantee that the flat in question will need a large amount if money spending on it, given that you can see evidence of work required just by looking at photos. A thorough survey will find more works required on top of the immediately obvious. The damp needs to be sorted 100% before you start anything else, and unless you are a builder or roofer, this is expensive business. I've just sorted out the damp issues in my house (which didn't look as bad as that) and it cost several thousand to remedy. You may find that in a leasehold property that you have to use the freeholder's preferred tradesmen for some works. If they themselves are responsible for the work (eg. the roof) then they could potentially be difficult to cooperate. I'm freehold though, so am not too familiar with the ins and outs of leasehold property.

I'm not trying to dissuade at all. I'm just pointing out that repair work needs to be done properly, and it's expensive.

I think I have found the area where I want to live. I had a lovely wander around it today and ended up in what would be my local.

I'm now a little drunk...

stay clear of wates

Megalolz - these are the clowns who cracked our block's soil stack.

Easy Howard. Yes they were terrible unfortunately

Who is Norman and why have you got his shed?

The 1.5 bed Warner was awful.

The road was way too busy/loud/polluted and the dude opened the door in his undies, and wouldn't let us in one of the rooms. There were kids everywhere and it smelt of cats but they didn't have a cat. Super bleak.
It was a total shit heap and I just walked out after 12 seconds.

The second one was basically my dream home. Only one bed but on what is probably my favourite street in London regardless of price. They wanted a bit much for it and the lease situation is murky so I put in an offer on Saturday.
Needless to say, today has dragged-on a bit too.

I've started recognising other couples at viewings, which actually makes sense.