Viewing a house. Then estimating costs

tom_tarbucket

may as well ask this question here too:

Can anyone recommend a builder in Galway that may help with my request?

budhabob

tom_tarbucket wrote: »

may as well ask this question here too:

Can anyone recommend a builder in Galway that may help with my request?

Not to confuse things, your question was purely related to doing up a house, but you should also have a structural assessment done - it may be a requirement of the mortgage provider anyway. So you will still likely also need to engage an engineer.

A_Sober_Paddy

schmittel wrote: »

I would have thought getting mortgage approval on a fixer upper is a lot harder, so right off the bat you're competing with a smaller pool of buyers.

Most of the remaining buyers would have similiar problems and concerns as the OP - i.e how do you accurately cost something on the strength of a couple of viewings. That will put off another swathe.

Sure builders can cost the job, buy the property and do the job themselves; I know of a few builders who kept themselves going during recession buying fixer uppers, but I reckon most would now prefer to take the regular work when there is plenty available.

So you're left with cash rich investors with experience of renovating property.

No I have no idea how many of them are active but certainly they're not as numerous as regular Joes with mortgage approval looking for family home.

Common sense would surely suggest there is value to be had for a buyer with the funds and knowledge to take on a fixer upper.

Well in my case it's structural sound and in a good location with regards letting it out or resale

amtc

Someone had a boiler quote of 4k here. Both myself and my parents got ours replaced for 1800 in last month

amtc

My dad uses some builder and trade guys in the north to carry out projects. They're pretty cheap and will travel. If you want their number will pm you

budhabob

amtc wrote: »

Someone had a boiler quote of 4k here. Both myself and my parents got ours replaced for 1800 in last month

They were pretty generous estimates as theres no info on whether the boiler would have to be moved, changing the water tank etc.

I got boiler replaced, moved, couple of rads removed / added and hot water tank changed for about 3.5k.

tom_tarbucket

amtc wrote: »

My dad uses some builder and trade guys in the north to carry out projects. They're pretty cheap and will travel. If you want their number will pm you

thanks, may take you up on this at some stage

LirW

I can only urge you to keep in mind when you start scraping at the surface of a fixer upper you will most likely find problems that weren't obvious.
We bought a fixer upper for f all money and wanted to do work bit by bit and in the end do the whole lot at once now. Classic problems would be the wiring of the house needs to be replaced and the plumbing isn't up to date to satisfy the heating needs in 2017. This is all too common, plenty of these houses have old boilers and old cylinders. Before you engage any of the other work I'd get a plumber and an electrician in to inspect the status quo, because most people have no knowledge about either.
I made the experience while a nice tiling is wonderful to have, a sufficient heating system is 100 times more important. You probably won't get to test the heating before you close the sale so it's really important to check that.

Also make sure that the surveyor you hire is good and reputable. I made the painful experience that a fixer upper + a bad surveyor are a horrible and costly combination.

tom_tarbucket

LirW wrote: »

I can only urge you to keep in mind when you start scraping at the surface of a fixer upper you will most likely find problems that weren't obvious.
We bought a fixer upper for f all money and wanted to do work bit by bit and in the end do the whole lot at once now. Classic problems would be the wiring of the house needs to be replaced and the plumbing isn't up to date to satisfy the heating needs in 2017. This is all too common, plenty of these houses have old boilers and old cylinders. Before you engage any of the other work I'd get a plumber and an electrician in to inspect the status quo, because most people have no knowledge about either.
I made the experience while a nice tiling is wonderful to have, a sufficient heating system is 100 times more important. You probably won't get to test the heating before you close the sale so it's really important to check that.

Also make sure that the surveyor you hire is good and reputable. I made the painful experience that a fixer upper + a bad surveyor are a horrible and costly combination.

Thanks.
Yeah, this is purely the reason why I started this thread, so I can maybe pre empt all these things and not go in blind.

Most of the houses im viewing were built in the 2000's, so hopefully nothing too too major will need to be done.

dont know what the corr etc age limit is on a fixer upper, suppose any house that is second hand really, but you would imagine a house in the 2000's should be ok, then again maybe not !!!

LirW

Some houses that were built in the 2000s have pretty lousy plumbing especially in the bathrooms, but it depends on where you are and when it was built. Plumbing would be one of the things where I'd always be wary because fixing any plumbing work is really expensive.