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To add to what aggi and silly_savage said. If your budget over around 350k you are defintely not limited to 'doer uppers'. My place is eastville (less than 10min cycle to St werbs, 15 to the centre and walk to centre in 30-40mins) was was 235k in 2019 and good to go, 3 bed (2bed made to 3 so one room is v small) with garden, just improving what we want. House in my road sold for 245 this year, seemed to be in decent condition, just need updating.
Maybe just need to widen the search a bit? St werbs and montpelier are nice but living in shithole/building site will be fucking shite!
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For an different perspective, I love having a shithole house that I'm completely rebuilding! Its given me a huge sense of satisfaction from learning all the skills as I go along and bringing the house back to life but exactly how I want it.
I had a smaller starting budget to this and my options were basically limited to
- shithole terraced house in good location
- good (ish) terraced house in shithole location
- small flat in good location (and I hate living in flats)
IMO tired houses that just need a bit of updating take much longer to do up than shithole ones because theres nothing that cant wait till next week/month. As long as you dont have kids, theres no great hardship in "camping" inside a bedroom or 2 upstairs while you take a hammer to the rest (especially with summer coming up). Once you have a bedroom as a safe space and a bathroom to keep yourself clean, the rest is just decadent luxuries.
These old Bristol victorian terraces are simple beasts made of dirt and wood and covered in countless layers of gloss paint and woodchip wallpaper. Perfect first time project houses :)
edit: but i would avoid that house in shaftesbury av tho
- shithole terraced house in good location
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@txkxo have you got a link to the sold one please? Going to have an explore that way
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I would also add Ashley Down to that search. Just as central as Werbs - in fact it's only across the allotments from my bit of Werbs. Minutes from St Andrews but not St Andrews prices.
It will be super easy to let a room in a place that's been decorated nicely like this one:
popdown
bobble
lemonade
@aggi Would love a house in a specific set of locations but only doer uppers are in my budget. Be good if somewhere was just dated and didn't need anything straight away. Also seeing it as an investment really not a forever home, and will be letting one double room out to a mate when whatever I get is in a good state. I think if I get a 2 bed flat, can't add much value and have the risk of problems of flat ownership, plus where do 4 bikes go!
If I push myself and get a house, do it up over a couple of years, I can make some money on top of the general market appreciation when I next move and I think this gain would be tax free. Would try and do a lot myself and get people in for other bits.
In terms of funding now, mortgage and deposit gets me to 330 with selling some shares. Got 18k in my vanguard ISA from this tax year which I can liquidate whenever, but don't really want to. I can then access quite a lot selling one holding (got some early inheritance due to a family tragedy when I was two that still affects me daily) which I am desperately trying to get rid of as it is not good having all my eggs in one basket, but already used my CGT allowance for this year and allocated it in the 330 above for the next tax year. Be good to sell off that holding up to the CGT threshold each year, improve the house, and have any further gains from that capital/investment be tax free.