Left a House...What to do?

Bingo481

Quick Update:

Had both a qualified Electrictian and Plumber out (Father & Son) and gave the place a good look over....currently getting quotes together. Will post back the final figures to get the place to rental standard.

Gonna deffo need Central Heating (Combi Boiler & 7 rads) and possible re-wiring of the electrics...Just as handy to do the electrics when the CH is going in.....although this has to be confirmed.....

Will keep updated.

slowmoe

Be careful you don't get carried away bingo. It sounds unusual for a one bed property in d8 to be valued@ 250k. Also i doubt you would really need an en suite for bedroom 2 and the size issue is a must too.

A relative of mine inherited a 2bed red brick terrace opp patricks cathedral about 2 yrs ago. They were told it was worth 400k from the will and would be about 550k if they spent 15-20k on it. Which they did and in doing the place up obviously there was a lot of time it was sitting empty, where further money was lost from not renting. Anyhow when the work was done the value had dropped a lot but then they weren't getting in offers even close to the value. So they would have gotten more money by selling straight away and getting a better offer instead of waiting with the timeframe of work and putting in a good bit of money. They even have trouble letting it now with offers. Just another point of view for you, codolences on your loss and good

luck with the situation

Raskolnikov

Bingo481 wrote: »

Ideally I would rent for 2-3yrs then sell if the market picks up and the rent would pay my current (HIGH MORTGAGE).

Have you considered that the market could be down in those three years? It could be a case that you end up throwing money into a black hole here. I mean that three years down the line you might have a property that's worth the same, even after you spent tens of thousands. When even the estate agents are saying that property prices have lower to go, you should at least consider selling now, banking the cash and perhaps re-entering the market at a lower price?

the_syco

Does it have a thatched room, and if it does, how old is the house? I ask this as my aunts old house was thatched, and it can be very expensive to fix, though you can get grants for it. If it's old, someone may have put it on a protected list, thus you may not be able to change much of it, nor put on tiles instead of the thatch.

Treehouse72

Bingo481 wrote: »

Ideally I would rent for 2-3yrs then sell if the market picks up and the rent would pay my current (HIGH MORTGAGE

The market will not pick up again in 2-3 years. You should remove this scenario from your planning entirely, because it is simply not going to happen.

Ireland's property crash has now been going on for about 3 years. All the international evidence from previous property crashes around the world suggests the process usually takes 6 or 7 years. Or, to put that another way, it takes about as long to crash as it did to bubble-up in the first place. In our case, that would be: Bubble 2000-2006, Crash 2007 - 2013, or something like that (allowing for some sustainable and structural house price inflation between 1997 and 2000).

So the next 2-3 years will be taken up with the end of the current property crash. Absolutely no room for any "pick-up" in that timeframe. After that point, the property market will return to being like any other market - subject to the normal workings of supply and demand. There is no reason whatsoever to assume this market will rise by anything more than inflation from that point on (which is what house prices have risen by for decades around the world in between intermittent bubbles/crashes). The only way prices will rise by more than inflation is if we have another bubble starting some time soon after the end of the current crash.

Is that likely? The causes of the previous bubble: the availability of vast amounts of cheap credit, massive temporary immigration, negative Irish emigration, near full employment, rising salaries, buoyant sentiment, government tax breaks/economic policy, hands-off regulatory regimes, lax lending criteria...you think those things will happen again starting in, say, 2014? Surely simple logic suggests such a thing is almost impossible. I doubt it could happen as soon as 2020 to be honest, and my own view is that I think it will be decades before we have another property bubble in Ireland. Hence, the price you get today might be the best price you'll get for 20 years.

Bingo481

Many thanks for the replies....

When I said I was going to try and rent the property, then sell in 2-3 yrs time I was speaking in general terms. If I can rent the property and make a profit I have no problem renting the property indeffinately. As I said there is not debt on the house, only what I will borrow to fix it up and I really want to keep that to a minimum.

TBH, I am not going to put any money into the house that is not ABSOLUTELY essential. IMHO, I really do feel that Central Heating is a must and if it needs re-wiring then It does make sense to do it now...although I would prefer not to...but I am not qualified to decide that.

I am still waiting for figures for the EXACT job and should have them this week, so that will be the make or break scenario. I am not prepared to put a vast amount of money into the property but I would go ahead with the CH in anyway at the very least.

With no tennants and no proper heating in the house it will deteriorate quite quickly especially in this weather, so its in my best interests to get this sorted.

Also, the house only has 1 bedroom because that is the way it was lived in...it could easily have 3 very large bedrooms, and I mean large and could easily accomodate an en suite. It really is a blank canvas at the moment, but my old landlord said the rooms where indeed very large and a great size even when full of old furniture and the like.

Victor

Bingo, you might start a few threads over on Home and Garden discussing what alterations you are proposing. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=875

Whatever you allow for plumbing and electrical, do you also need to allow for bathroom fittings, light fittings, repairs to plasterwork after that work, decoration, furniture, etc.

To rent out the place you will need a BER certificate.