When looking at 'used' houses, what things do you care about?

mrslancaster

gardens front & back were a must for us as well as neighbouring houses at the back. It might not be a consideration in some places around the country but having open fields or empty space at the back of any house in Dublin will likely have apartments built there at some stage. Not a problem for some people but it will mean overlooking.

Any updates or refurbishment can be done in stages as budgets allow & to your own taste. also some kind of rear access is very useful if you need to do any building, maintenance or gardening work at the back of house.

Height of attic space in case you want to convert attic in future.

Zaney

K.Hawksworth wrote: »

As someone currently in the market to buy, given the supply shortage I wish I had the choice to be worrying about stuff like garden aspect. At this stage I would take anything so long as it's

1. In Dublin
2. Near schools
3. 4 walls, windows and a roof, electricity and plumbing

Insulation/kitchen/painting etc can be done slowly over the years.

I can relate, but still some red lines for me. I’d definitely add as a must:
4. Off street parking so I can have a homecharger for an electric car or secure parking for an electric cargo bike, good access for bikes.
5. Public transport or cycle distance to most places we want to get to.

JimmyVik

GreeBo wrote: »

I'm going to go out on a limb and say you would have reached the same sale price without spending €1500 on the patio.

Dont know.

But what I do know is that tarting up a house pays off big time in the price you get for it.

It certainly increased the number of bidders. We were bidding against one other when we bought it. A Few months later there were 6 bidders.

Zaney

The housing market is a funny game. When my sister bought there were two houses near identical for sale very near each other, one with a low asking price the other with a high one. She bid on both. There followed a bidding war with numerous bidders on the low priced house that soon exceeded the high asking price property.

She was the only bidder on the high asking price property, bid less than asking price and got it for a lot less than what the low asking price house ultimately sold for.

We’re only starting our property search and I’m dreading it.

KBH2020

K.Hawksworth wrote: »

As someone currently in the market to buy, given the supply shortage I wish I had the choice to be worrying about stuff like garden aspect. At this stage I would take anything so long as it's

1. In Dublin
2. Near schools
3. 4 walls, windows and a roof, electricity and plumbing

Insulation/kitchen/painting etc can be done slowly over the years.

I feel your pain. I started off with a list of requirements and I am now looking at a house on daft that has had no work done on it in decades and thinking "this looks nice..it has four walls, a front door.."!!

I would love to know how much it costs to renovate a standard 3 bed semi d e.g. rewiring, repave driveway, external/internal insulation, knocking a partition wall/extending, new kitchen, new windows, new bathroom, new front door, new floors and walls painted. The answer is probably how long is a piece of string but I would be interested if anyone could hazard a guess or if they did any similar work how much it cost...

stampydmonkey

KBH2020 wrote: »

I feel your pain. I started off with a list of requirements and I am now looking at a house on daft that has had no work done on it in decades and thinking "this looks nice..it has four walls, a front door.."!!

I would love to know how much it costs to renovate a standard 3 bed semi d e.g. rewiring, repave driveway, external/internal insulation, knocking a partition wall/extending, new kitchen, new windows, new bathroom, new front door, new floors and walls painted. The answer is probably how long is a piece of string but I would be interested if anyone could hazard a guess or if they did any similar work how much it cost...

We are at €120-130k for this bar extension. 1 quote so far

Lia_lia

KBH2020 wrote: »

I feel your pain. I started off with a list of requirements and I am now looking at a house on daft that has had no work done on it in decades and thinking "this looks nice..it has four walls, a front door.."!!

I would love to know how much it costs to renovate a standard 3 bed semi d e.g. rewiring, repave driveway, external/internal insulation, knocking a partition wall/extending, new kitchen, new windows, new bathroom, new front door, new floors and walls painted. The answer is probably how long is a piece of string but I would be interested if anyone could hazard a guess or if they did any similar work how much it cost...

Friend of mine getting this done at the moment plus a new bedroom. Costing over 200k.

the_syco

Stuff that may not be visable until you move in, so you need to look out for telltale signs.

Examples; mold & bad neighbours.

These two things may also be the reason the seller is trying to leave!

KBH2020

KBH2020 wrote: »

The answer is probably how long is a piece of string but I would be interested if anyone could hazard a guess or if they did any similar work how much it cost...

I did a ground floor L shape ('wraparound', back and side) extension, re-paved back garden, renovated all rooms and currently doing a bathroom (added a bathroom in the extension, too) and will be re-dashing some external wall where the pebble-dashing came off. (I also have a snag list of sorts, and a few smaller details to do).


By the time I'm done, I reckon I'll have renovated and extended a full 3 bed semi d in Louth, for, give or take, 90k.


Shopping around, playing quotes against each other, and using smaller operators is the magic ingredient, in my experience. I'm currently doing a bathroom and a chap quoted almost 7k. Knocked the best part of a grand off it with some haggling and back and forth, without sacrificing anything of worth.

JustAThought

Apart from all the obvious already listed here

- no so called management company estates
- no allocated parking or shared parking areas
- nowhere without proper front gardens to keep cars, kids and bins in
- preferably no bloody neighbours!!!
-nowhere that is going to be part of the bus transport and have their gardens CPO’d and mature trees cut down
-no mixed estates/social & affordable/large or SW filled appartments with or without bins & parking

-somewhere on two reliable public transport routes or more with more than one bus scheduled an hour

shtpEdthePlum

We have the options of either staying where we are and doing up an old house we love, or we can buy somewhere new.

A new build is appealing but the location is top notch here and the bones of this place are solid. I love this cold ancient hole of a house. If we even got ten or fifteen years out of it, I think it would be worth a fairly large investment for me, even though it probably won't add on much value if we sell down the line.

The renovations required are rewiring the whole place, dry lining throughout, knocking the back wall and a wall between two living rooms, tacking on conservatory, extend and replace kitchen and upstairs bathroom, install a ground floor bathroom under the stairs, seal three chimneys and restore one.

Any thoughts on if we would be completely mad to do that? We're fully replacing 2 rooms out of the current seven (kitchen and bathroom), merging two existing living rooms and adding on two new rooms (bathroom and conservatory). It appears to me that it might cost as much as a new build.

Cuddlesworth

shtpEdthePlum wrote: »

It appears to me that it might cost as much as a new build.

Because it's effectively the same thing depending on the age of the property. And it's near impossible logistically or financially to do it piecemeal.

Hontou

1. Neighbours
2. Own parking
3. If house has a septic tank, does it meet all requirements / has it caused trouble in the past
4. Damp....and the source of it
5. Is it walkable to services and is that walk safe in terms of traffic. When/if you have children, you will spend your life in a car otherwise

punisher5112

South facing rear garden is a must....

jrosen

Once the obvious location, access to schools and number of bedrooms nothing else was a huge issue.

In no particular order. Possibility of converting the attic was a plus, utility with external access, driveway to fit 2 cars min, didnt want to be too close to any common green space, cul-de-sac, sunshine at some point of the day, enough space to have a patio, open plan living space and separate living room, home office.

They were things we were looking.

Ultimately price ran the show. I wasn't prepared to pay top of our budget for a property with a kitchen we didn't like if we didnt have the money after buying to change it.

ec_pc

We are in the countryside surrounded by green fields and had different requirements compared to people living in urban locations.

Our key items were :

Zoning for surrounding land
Any significant crime or break ins in the area on regular basis
Mains water
Decent broadband (still waiting on that)
Large garden with sunny aspect.
Walking distance of the town
Potential for renovation

the_syco

Hontou wrote: »

4. Damp....and the source of it

On this, like when renting, fresh paint can be a sign of covering up something. Easiest way to get rid of damp for a few months is painting over it. By which time, house is sold, and no longer the sellers problem.

mrslancaster

ec_pc wrote: »

....Any significant crime or break ins in the area on regular basis
.....

How can buyers find this info?

Caranica

mrslancaster wrote: »

How can buyers find this info?

Google/neighbours/Gardai

MilaM

For example, do people pay more for a house that has been extended? Or is it the kinda thing that you won't really get any extra money selling it, but the extension will make it more desirable, so it might sell faster?

It depends, once extended so much there was no garden left and what was gained by the extention was dinning room without lights.

Location location location location for us
followed by regular transport and nice place we can walk to
not too far from the sea - really paid off for us. We bought January 2020 after searching for one year and during the lockdowns we truly appreciated the areas
Light in the house. We have seen some sought facing houses but terraced with small windows and a lot of trees in neighbors garden - the house still felt dark. We end up buying detached house with a lot of windows and while the garden is north west facing there are no dark rooms in the house. Even things as windows between the stairs make such great difference

If the kitchen is too small and no room to extend it was no go for us too, I don't have my dream kitchen yet but I will in the next year hopefully.
?
But ultimately it was location, potential to be the dream home even if it's not right now, structurally sound.

if I have X amount of money do I
Get very well refurbed house in ok area?
Get house in great area that will need slow update - doer upper but in good condition

The location won. house interior will look aged in 15 years no matter what and upgrades are ongoing thing. Great house in so so area in 15 years will feel tired, and will never be dream home. A good house in great location with potential to do up slowly has the path to dream home. Within limits as it had to be livable

ideally I will have all the money and I won't have to choose, but this is not how it is for most people

MilaM

we were willing to wait to get the kitchen we want and do things slowly. If it was done up in our area the cost would have been a lot more than we paid, and we love the location

But we love the house and the area so much and we want to grow older here. I wouldn't change it for a perfect house in area we don't love as much

I did a lot of googling re planning permissions. 2 houses with land/green area/pub behind we looked at 2019 currently have planning applications - one with 100ts of apartments, the other school. Some had social housing projects nearby and we didn't want that.

Upgraded houses did sell very well btw, just it wasn't top of our priority and many went over our budget.

KBH2020

stampydmonkey wrote: »

We are at €120-130k for this bar extension. 1 quote so far

Lia_lia wrote: »

Friend of mine getting this done at the moment plus a new bedroom. Costing over 200k.

Deleted User wrote: »

I did a ground floor L shape ('wraparound', back and side) extension, re-paved back garden, renovated all rooms and currently doing a bathroom (added a bathroom in the extension, too) and will be re-dashing some external wall where the pebble-dashing came off. (I also have a snag list of sorts, and a few smaller details to do).


By the time I'm done, I reckon I'll have renovated and extended a full 3 bed semi d in Louth, for, give or take, 90k.

I was thinking it would be in excess of 100k without the extension. I think another poster summed it up when they said you get better value buying a house in turnkey condition. Not sure if this is just in Dublin? I wouldn't mind buying a doer upper in a good area if the price was right but currently looking at a doer upper versus a turnkey version of it and there is only 65k difference in asking price..not to mention the Covid premium which will push the asking price up!! I am coming to the conclusion the best buy would be a house in good condition in a good area that maybe needs 50-60k of work to bring it your preferred standard over the years, now if only I could find it!!

Lia_lia

KBH2020 wrote: »

I was thinking it would be in excess of 100k without the extension. I think another poster summed it up when they said you get better value buying a house in turnkey condition. Not sure if this is just in Dublin? I wouldn't mind buying a doer upper in a good area if the price was right but currently looking at a doer upper versus a turnkey version of it and there is only 65k difference in asking price..not to mention the Covid premium which will push the asking price up!! I am coming to the conclusion the best buy would be a house in good condition in a good area that maybe needs 50-60k of work to bring it your preferred standard over the years, now if only I could find it!!

I feel your pain. I’ve been looking for a while now and houses that need a lot of work in good locations are going for mental prices. We just wouldn’t be able to afford the work that is needed. Construction prices are supposed to be very high at the moment and also difficult get get tradespeople to do the work. After seeing what my friend is going through with the cost of their renovation it’s put me off the idea.

We are now looking at new builds again at the top of our price range which means we’ll still get a house in a relatively good area and also get 30k off the price with the help to buy. Would love to have the money to do up an old house in a great location with a huge garden but we just can’t afford it.

elizunia87

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Depends.

We bought our current house last year and the priorities were the area, garden and public transport. We planned to renovate fully so condition internally wasn't a big deal.

We are now purchasing a cheap 1 bed apartment as an investment. This priority was cost, rental income, condition and public transport.

For us location. We bought a house last year near the town, now we can cycle to work. Was possible to move in straight away, but there was no kitchen furniture.we did all floors, wiring the house (8k), kitchen, garden slabs ( we have lovely big garden). Only thing i dont like is a small extention downstairs but we will work on that slowly.

I say focus on location.

pleh

Location either buy the worst house in the best neighborhood or buy the best house in an up and coming neighbourhood.
Then garden not because I love gardening I just love space.

JimmyVik

the_syco wrote: »

On this, like when renting, fresh paint can be a sign of covering up something. Easiest way to get rid of damp for a few months is painting over it. By which time, house is sold, and no longer the sellers problem.

Everyone selling a house paints it first

JohnnyChimpo

JimmyVik wrote: »

Everyone selling a house paints it first

Having recently bought a probate house, this is not necessarily true

JimmyVik

JohnnyChimpo wrote: »

Having recently bought a probate house, this is not necessarily true

Said in jest
Most people do though.
I actually know someone at the moment wants a quick sale and wont be paining it.

rain on

-Habitable
-Walking distance from the town centre
-No known criminals as my immediate neighbours

Beggars can't be choosers

billyhead

rain on wrote: »

-Habitable
-Walking distance from the town centre
-No known criminals as my immediate neighbours

Beggars can't be choosers

The problem is you don't get to know what the neighbors are like until you move in. Op, Check out the back garden of your neighbors. You can get an impression of them by how they maintain it.