3 bed semi refurb estimates
Discussion
Myself and a couple of family members are looking to buy a house with a view to developing and refurbing. My uncle is an electrician and has really good contacts within the building trade and already has 4 properties which he has done similar work on, but those are currently rented out. We're all pretty handy in terms of DIY and building work.
We've just viewed a 3 bed semi around the corner which is generally solid but requires a complete internal refurb and a bit of work outside.
We're planning to make an offer based on the work costing us the following:
£5k - Supply and fit 8 radiator central heating, minor plumbing work in kitchen and bathroom and complete rewire of house.
£2k - Kitchen units, oven, sink (10'x7')
£1k - External work (new soffits)
£2k - Pattern imprint concrete front garden and pay for dropped kerb
£1.5k - Replaster majority of hoouse
£2k - Decorator to paint all woodwork, walls and ceilings of whole house
£1k - Strip out costs including skip
£1k - Flooring throughout
£5k - Buying and selling costs
Total £20.5k
We've just viewed a 3 bed semi around the corner which is generally solid but requires a complete internal refurb and a bit of work outside.
We're planning to make an offer based on the work costing us the following:
£5k - Supply and fit 8 radiator central heating, minor plumbing work in kitchen and bathroom and complete rewire of house.
£2k - Kitchen units, oven, sink (10'x7')
£1k - External work (new soffits)
£2k - Pattern imprint concrete front garden and pay for dropped kerb
£1.5k - Replaster majority of hoouse
£2k - Decorator to paint all woodwork, walls and ceilings of whole house
£1k - Strip out costs including skip
£1k - Flooring throughout
£5k - Buying and selling costs
Total £20.5k
Unless its really small i think you need to add a little bit more there, theres no funding allowed for 'extras' or contingency for the costs which will come up which you just never saw coming.
maybe i missed it but bathroom?
2k for a drive and drop kerb won't happen unless its about 20m2.
2k for painting sounds a lot.
more than 1.5k for plastering unless you can get someone cheap.
You will need way more than one skip unless its one of sylvanian familes houses
complete refurb to a reasonable standard- i,d bet your going to do 30k all in. Unless you do a LOT of the work yourselves.
maybe i missed it but bathroom?
2k for a drive and drop kerb won't happen unless its about 20m2.
2k for painting sounds a lot.
more than 1.5k for plastering unless you can get someone cheap.
You will need way more than one skip unless its one of sylvanian familes houses

complete refurb to a reasonable standard- i,d bet your going to do 30k all in. Unless you do a LOT of the work yourselves.
hora said:
Why not wait, speculate as some houses do come up that don't need much doing and are going relatively cheap for the area
(Executors/Death in house/old age/Auctions etc etc).
It doesn't need that much doing (compared to some we have looked at), it is relatively cheap for the area and is being sold as the old dear who has lived there from new for 50 years is going into a home.(Executors/Death in house/old age/Auctions etc etc).
The plastering figure is pretty much spot on as my uncle has used someone before at that rate.
The drive is pretty small and we have the kit to do the driveway ourselves so that's just material costs and the cost of getting the dropped kerb put in (£600-800).
Bathroom cost is negligible as we can get a full B&Q suite for £250 odd.
tonker, the kitchen is fairly small, we'd only be looking at sink, oven, worktops and a few cupboards, I'd have thought that was about right. There is no contingency in there but I think we have over-estimates on some things, such as the decorating and plumbing.
The drive is pretty small and we have the kit to do the driveway ourselves so that's just material costs and the cost of getting the dropped kerb put in (£600-800).
Bathroom cost is negligible as we can get a full B&Q suite for £250 odd.
tonker, the kitchen is fairly small, we'd only be looking at sink, oven, worktops and a few cupboards, I'd have thought that was about right. There is no contingency in there but I think we have over-estimates on some things, such as the decorating and plumbing.
We are looking to flip it for a profit and have it back on the market in a couple of months.
There's no real cost to the electrics as such as my uncle runs an electrical contracting business.
We would be looking for £150k when it goes back on the market, so need to go OTT on the quality of materials in the kitchen and bathroom.
There's no real cost to the electrics as such as my uncle runs an electrical contracting business.
We would be looking for £150k when it goes back on the market, so need to go OTT on the quality of materials in the kitchen and bathroom.
Muncher said:
We are looking to flip it for a profit and have it back on the market in a couple of months.
There's no real cost to the electrics as such as my uncle runs an electrical contracting business.
We would be looking for £150k when it goes back on the market, so need to go OTT on the quality of materials in the kitchen and bathroom.
What do you hope to buy it for? With costs of buying and selling and interest on the loan etc etc you'd probably have to be in the £100K region to make that comfortable. Is that price feasible?There's no real cost to the electrics as such as my uncle runs an electrical contracting business.
We would be looking for £150k when it goes back on the market, so need to go OTT on the quality of materials in the kitchen and bathroom.
Just seen a semi-detached bungalow described as "derelict" (and it was) sell in a village near us for £166K at auction when one in decent nick would probably struggle to break £200K.
Deva Link said:
Muncher said:
We are looking to flip it for a profit and have it back on the market in a couple of months.
There's no real cost to the electrics as such as my uncle runs an electrical contracting business.
We would be looking for £150k when it goes back on the market, so need to go OTT on the quality of materials in the kitchen and bathroom.
What do you hope to buy it for? With costs of buying and selling and interest on the loan etc etc you'd probably have to be in the £100K region to make that comfortable. Is that price feasible?There's no real cost to the electrics as such as my uncle runs an electrical contracting business.
We would be looking for £150k when it goes back on the market, so need to go OTT on the quality of materials in the kitchen and bathroom.
Just seen a semi-detached bungalow described as "derelict" (and it was) sell in a village near us for £166K at auction when one in decent nick would probably struggle to break £200K.
If we don't get it we have a few more candidates in mind.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
With a few exceptions, I'm dubious this sort of stuff ever worked outside of the South-East, and in many cases it only worked there due to soaring house prices. There was a classic on one of Sarah Beeney's programmes where a couple of guys paid £400K for a place in London, spent £100K but took a year to do it, and sold for £600K. Sounds great but SB pointed out they'd have made that £100K if they'd just kept the house as it was and sold it after a year due to rising prices. So they did all that work for nothing.
For "ordinary" houses in the UK, the sale price is very tightly linked to the rest of the property in the street, as the OP has noted, so you'e very much limited by that ceiling. My daughter's in-laws came a cropper with this - it's worked for them in London where they own several million pounds worth of property but they just didn't seem to realise that out in the sticks you can't magically add £100K to the value of a £200K house by spending £25K on it.
No, it's not what I do for a living, however the 2 people I am doing it with, are in the building trade, they have several properties of their own already and they also do a lot of work for small developers doing just this sort of thing so have seen the process for many years.
If, as cash purchasers we can get a price which we think will allow us to make some profit then it's worth a go.
This particular property was passed to me by a friend who is an agent. He thought the asking price was in the right ball park but that we may well be able to get it if we moved swiftly with an offer of £100-110k. The ceiling price of houses of that type, on that road which have sold recently in a good condition is £150-170k. Indeed his agency have a newly renovated very similar house on the market, 2 doors along from this property for £155k which he expects to achieve.
So if you can get it for a little less than asking price there is the potential to turn it around to make a healthy profit. We're not going to get carried away with what we are offering for properties, chasing a tiny margin, but hopefully sooner or later he will pick up something.
If, as cash purchasers we can get a price which we think will allow us to make some profit then it's worth a go.
This particular property was passed to me by a friend who is an agent. He thought the asking price was in the right ball park but that we may well be able to get it if we moved swiftly with an offer of £100-110k. The ceiling price of houses of that type, on that road which have sold recently in a good condition is £150-170k. Indeed his agency have a newly renovated very similar house on the market, 2 doors along from this property for £155k which he expects to achieve.
So if you can get it for a little less than asking price there is the potential to turn it around to make a healthy profit. We're not going to get carried away with what we are offering for properties, chasing a tiny margin, but hopefully sooner or later he will pick up something.
Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff



