Owning your own home

I'm not too sure in Bristol prices, but the nicely done up one has the loft done, and more period features (picture rails, coving) intact, so you might expect the price difference to be a bit more.

Your list looks like a good starting point, but then there's all the things you don't expect, e.g. the Mysterious Damp, the Horrors Beneath the Carpets, the Collapsing Horsehair Plaster Ceiling, etc.

Make sure you've got a lot left over for the unknowns.

Even the nicely done up one I think needs work.

So that one you’ve got had damp looking at the back wall, it might have been fixed but that’s to take into account.

Rewire up here (Glasgow) I’d say between 2.5-5k.
Kitchen 8k
Does it need a boiler/radiators - 4ish
Plastering etc etc etc

You could easily spend 50k doing that up and it doesn’t touch the sides. So defo take that into account. We’re just finishing a job and the guys spent about 100k doing it up. He said they had 75 and blew past it but have done everything and added on a small extension(single story)

What should I be looking out for and as a FTB who has never done any house buying or much home DIY?

Immediate thoughts

• next door have some kind of extension that runs along the west boundary. It looks like the flu from their boiler is exiting across the boundary in to 'your' garden. It's also quite tall, and doesn't look like the kind of thing planning would agree to. It could be a clue to the neighbours being bastards. It's almost certainly blighting 'your' garden.

• parking. Gonna be a bastard. you might not care, others might

• potential loft conversion. Looks like others on that street have made the loft a livable space, but only one has extended the back with a flat roof. This might be a clue that you can't for some boring reason (conservation area?)

• Tree in the garden looks too big. It will need to go. You might be able to get it out the back but more likely it will have to be taken through the house when it does come down. Which is a bastard.

Looking at it, as above, total renovation. Assume nothing works, and it needs to come back to the brick and floor joists before it can be improved. There's something going on with damp and water, plenty of evidence of it in the photos, could be some fucked drains or the roof could be leaking, you'd need to find out. Plenty of big things to asses and sort;

• roof
  
• windows
  
• central heating
  
• electrics
  
• plastering
  
• flooring
  
• ground floor layout (if you take that wall out, you will have a lot of white goods on display)
  
• first floor layout (bathroom is oversized using space that can be better used elsewhere)
  
• garden
  
  

But it's a nice size for that kind of thing if you fancy it.

(I actually think the 'done up' one is almost equally problematic - it's had a lick of paint and there's some plasterboard and a window in the loft but god knows if it's been done right. The utility room is a lean too with a plastic roof and god knows what's in the garden).

I live in St Werburghs and it is a fantastic area, let me know if you have any questions.

For me, I would be concerned that the nicer done up one is a bit close to the motorway.

Bouncy floorboards. You don't want bouncy floorboards. Touch the walls, there's been a fair amount of rain recently and it's been cold, so an un-lived in house probably won't have dried if there's active damp. Costs-wise, it could very easily be in the 10s of £ks to sort out. But on the other hand you might be able to just move in and live with it. If you are interested - get a full buildings survey, about £1k, and if possible get a knowledgeable friend or builder to have a look. Best of luck!

This was mine. If you were doing it not to sell you'd definitely do the side return extension and loft. Watch out though as the gardens are all pretty bloody small even if they don't look so on the pictures.

Tarting it up pre-sale cost £13k, Bristiol builders are a good deal cheaper than the f**kers in London.

Obviously bear in mind that not everything needs to be done straightaway.

Damp, electrics, anything dangerous to you/the structure need sorting but you may decide you can live with a crappy bathroom or old windows for a while. When I moved into my last place the windows were flagged as something that needed sorting, I finally did them 8 years later (admittedly they were held together with duct tape at that point).