Property Developing....

[Tink78]

DH and I really fancy selling our house, and buying somewhere that needs some work, and re-selling it (hopefully) for a profit, but we are nervous.

We know it will be hard work, lots of stress etc. but we really want to do this a couple of times, to try and get ourselves up the Property Ladder a bit quicker so we can move back to Milton Keynes (which is where we are from originally) or to the coast somewhere down South.
The house prices are so much more there, and we want to move somewhere nicer but don't want to downgrade our house size, so we need some extra cash somehow and we think that developing a few houses might help us out a bit.

Has anyone done this?
Got any stories to share?
Any advice?

 

[Merylj]

Friends of ours have been doing this for a few years now and have done very well - apart from this last year - they can no longer find any properties to do up - everyone they think is doing the same thing!
The other problem is finding tradesmen - there`s no one out there to do the work for them - or work is priced to high.
Do you watch "homes under the hammer" ? Maybe auction properties are the way to go????????

 

[playallgamesandwin]

hey how do u make a board?

 

[Tink78]

No, I don't watch it...sorry, but yes, maybe auctions might be an idea.

With regards to tradesmen, by Dad's an electrician, and both my Dad and DH's Dad can do basic plumbing, fitting kitchens etc, so we can get some cheap labour.

It will only be plastering and hard plumbing that might be a problem for us.

We just know what to do.
At the moment we still need to 'finish' this house but there's only basic painting to do really.

 

[ely3857]

DF & I bought a wreck in Oct '04 as it was the only thing we could afford, once it was all done up with a loan from df parents & the help of our flexible friend we re-mortgaged to repay these debts and ended up with a fully furnished house exactly as we wanted it.

It took from Oct'04 to July'05 to finish renovating and move in and those 9 months were the most stressfull of my entire life.

We had builders in for the most part as the majority of it was heavy rebuilding, new roof, new floors, replacing a wall, re-wiring etc.

Once the builders were done we did the decorating ourselves but as this consisted of painting newly plastered walls it wasnt too taxing, or so we thought. Neither of us had ever done any DIY/Decorating before so it took alot longer than nessesary and we were working full time so for two weeks our days went like this; up at 06.15-work-finish work-tea-paint-bedtime anywhere between 00.00 & 02.00 depending on wether we had run out of paint!-up at 06.15-work.....The day before our carpets were fitted we started painting straight from work on Friday evening and finished at 06.40 went back to df parents for shower and 1 hour kip then back to house to let carpet fitters in!

We paid £31.5k for the house and re-valued at £70k, all of the increase went to repay parents & cc bills but we had also bought all furniture etc, everything from sofa's & fridge to kitchen bin which came to around £10k so that would have been our net profit had we sold which isnt much for 9 months work but obviously 2nd time round you would have more experience and less need for builders.

I dont have any pictures of our wreck as we filmed it all on camcorder instead.

We did go to a few auctions to get a feel for how it worked incase our dream wreck ended up been an auction property and in our area any price quoted as a guideline was generally tripled on the day.

Hope this helps!



Jodie

 

[Tink78]

Thanks for the info.
We have a lot to think about.

 

[mark&sue]

It is very hard to find these type of properties. It seems that they are snapped up straight away, certainly this is the case here in North London.

I work for the local council in the housing department and we are always being asked by members of the public if there are any empty properties in the borough that are cheap so they can do them up. I always suggest auctions as we have never seen any "cheap" properties in the local paper.

DH owns a building company and they never find any "cheap" properties to do up either.

We bought a brand new house and DH has completely gutted it and done it up several times in the last 8 years just because he enjoys it!!! We had a loft conversion and converted the garage to a second kitchen! He likes to always be working on at least one room in the house. I am sure it is worth more than if he hadn't but we don't intend to move just enjoy living in it.

He does the house up and I DIS.

Good luck in your search


Susan

 

[Tink78]

He does the house up and I DIS.

Susan

Sounds like a good idea

 

[Minniespal]

He does the house up and I DIS

That sounds fair