Smuggo wrote: Natalie Holt, specifically? She penned the article the MT advisor brought out. I don't think the advisor read my occupation properly, or she'd realise that a PR isn't going to base the biggest financial investment of his life on one photocopied article. |
I just bought my first property! • Page 4
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BanjoMan 13,692 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 15 years ago -
skuzzbag 5,950 posts
Seen 5 years ago
Registered 17 years agoSmuggo wrote:
skuzzbag wrote:
So your saying that if you buy a house on a mortgage, do some work that adds 20K to the value, and then sell it after 1-2 years (most likely 1). The mortgage interest eats up the profit?
That is a shit mortgage right there.
Well, there are so many risk factors and variables there it is impossible to say for sure. A substantial amount of monthly payments are for interest in the early years of a mortgage.
The costs of whatever work you can do might also vary from initial estimates as well. Of course, there is always the chance you can't sell it when the time comes, or the market is falling and you end up having to sell for less than you bought it for. It's an incredibly risky way to make money.
I'm not talking about property development as a career though. Simply buying something that needs a bit of work, even just decorating nicely or tidying up. You buy the stuff that other buyers don't want as they just want to move in. Hence the price is lower than it could be. You do the work and then move on.
After three houses, all bought with mortgages we had 60K in the bank after 8 years. Half of that was from property price rises, the rest was from fairly easy work we did. -
BanjoMan 13,692 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 15 years agoSmuggo wrote:
I currently work in higher ed.
You're in PR? Who for? -
skuzzbag 5,950 posts
Seen 5 years ago
Registered 17 years agoWell yeah, I imagine we would have made more without any interest payments .gif)
We didn't do any of it on purpose mind. We simply had to buy the cheaper properties that neeed work doing, never had any problems selling. The last one was the longest right in the middle of prices falling. The house had gone up 30K after we bought it and when we sold it had dropped 30K (luckily no more).
However, we had added decking and a few other modernisations as we wanted to stay there. So made a bit on that. Any work you do that adds value is good. -
Yeah, making improvements just to raise the value can be a huge false economy. It can actually go against you, in that a lot of people would prefer to have made those improvements to their taste anyway. When I was buying it felt like everyone thought painting the front door and sticking in a new work surface would add £50k to the value. It was annoying. -
Dougs 100,414 posts
Seen 13 hours ago
Registered 18 years agoImprovements might not necessarily increase the price much (unless new bathroom/kitchen etc) but should help with saleability, as long as it's fairly simple -
Dougs wrote:
Improvements might not necessarily increase the price much (unless new bathroom/kitchen etc) but should help with saleability, as long as it's fairly simple
It really can go either way tbh, again, a lot of people would prefer to pay less and make the improvements themself, especially if they're simply ones. I would actually suggest most people are this way. -
JuanKerr 37,710 posts
Seen 10 months ago
Registered 15 years agoThere are also plenty of people who just want to move straight into somewhere without having to do much work at all. -
JuanKerr wrote:
There are also plenty of people who just want to move straight into somewhere without having to do much work at all.
As I say, it can go either way.
To be frank unless it's literally brand new, you're always going to have to do a certain amount of work. Once you empty a house of everything in it, you can see all the scuffs and scratches and damp bits etc etc. A repaint tends to be the bare minimum, even if it was recently done.
I think the point is if you want to make changes for your benefit, go for it, but again, improvements to raise the value can often be a nonsence, especially now that's it's a buyer's market again. -
Smuggo wrote:
Laminate flooring went through a boom period a few years ago cause some cunts on TV decorating programmes thought it was great. Fucking horrible stuff. Glad my current house has none of it.
Along with painting rooms with different shades of blue on each wall.
Looking back Dougs is right, having a nicely done up freshly improved house will make your house more 'saleable', but only up to a point. My point is that if it has blatantly been done to add actual value, as opposed to just making it more appealing, then it can go against you.
You just have to be sensible about these things, but you certainly shouldn't feel that your property being in a bit of a state will put people off buying, as a lot of buyers want properties like this. -
Nexus_6 6,168 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 17 years agoI bought my flat probably at the the height of the market 3 years ago.
Since then, i have completely replaced the kitchen all integrated units etc nice tap, removed a silly wall to make the room bigger, restored timber panelling to the bedroom, stripped all traces of fucking woodchip, opened up an old fire place (no fire or surround, just the void) and tiled with reclaimed original tiles.
I am currently having the lounge re-plastered, i will be stripping the ornate cornicing and ceiling roses to restore to its original glory. I am also currently having the bathroom completely replaced and refurbished (for example the shower tray wasnt fixed down and water has been leaking, no need for skill - just use silicon where you dont know what to do!) with new vertical radiators throughout the property. Also have sanded the lounge and bedroom floors and left exposed, while the rest of the rooms are dark grey rubber.
Primarily i have done this to satisfy myself, and to make my house nice. A side effect of this may be to increase the price in the long run. It may not. I may break even.
What i do hope it does is make it slightly easier to sell in the current market, if i had to as an emergency etc.
I have spent money on it for sure, but if you are going to try and make money specifically from refurbs then you have to be bang on the head about what costs what, why you are having it and if you can recoup your costs or not. IMO -
skuzzbag 5,950 posts
Seen 5 years ago
Registered 17 years agokalel wrote:
Yeah, making improvements just to raise the value can be a huge false economy. It can actually go against you, in that a lot of people would prefer to have made those improvements to their taste anyway. When I was buying it felt like everyone thought painting the front door and sticking in a new work surface would add £50k to the value. It was annoying.
Well that's clearly a ridiculous expectation and a result of the flood of house buying programs in the years leading up to the crash.
What you do is buy properties that are under their potential value because they don't have central heating, no double glazing, they have an old kitchen say 60's or 70's. Maybe the garden is a disaster area overgrown or full of crap. These are all things that knock down the value or put off potential buyers, leaving them available to people who can negotiate a more reasonable price becuase of the work that needs to be done to bring the price up to what the seller thinks it's worth.
As I said before, we've never bought a property solely to make money on it. We expected to stay in each of the properties for ages but then things changed. Any improvements we made were made so as to add value. We also had to make essential fixes that don't add value but which bring the property up to scratch.
Anyway, these are all things we did and it worked for us regardless of any general property increases. This seems to piss some people off. Deal with it
I suppose the key is to negotiate a good price. In the past people seemed happy to pay 5% to 10% over the value of a house. We found you didn't need to do this to get a good property, you just needed to be patient.
Oh I might add that I've done most work myself which saves a fortune. Before anyone assumes it was crap, it wasn't it just took longer. -
kalel wrote:
Smuggo wrote:
You just have to be sensible about these things, but you certainly shouldn't feel that your property being in a bit of a state will put people off buying, as a lot of buyers want properties like this.
This is exactly the kind of property we looked for.
.gif)
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