Buying a fixer upper

[Pip in a Poke]

...and living in it at the same time.

Anyone ever taken this on and lived to tell the story?

My rationale is that I'm in limbo with the proceeds from my sale & I don't want to enter into a long term rental.

Money down the drain.

Yes, there are obvious risks but fortune favours the brave and all that...

The main thing is to acquire something that I would be happy living in should I get lumbered with it through circumstances such as the market going belly up.

[SueEllen]

Depends:
1. On how much you have to fix, and,
2. If you have somewhere you can bolt to for a few days.

[woohoo]

Not so much a fixer upper but lived and worked in a house when doing substantial work on the house, new kitchen, knocking walls down etc.

Right pain in the arse, everything is dirty all the time. I just didn't think that would be a problem, but after a while it's just a complete pain. We ended up having the bedroom as the clean room, the one place you could go to and just ignore the mess.

I would seriously think about hiring a caravan and living in that next time.

[Pip in a Poke]

Depends:
1. On how much you have to fix, and,
2. If you have somewhere you can bolt to for a few days.

Something that would, using estate agent parlance, require updating.

New kitchen, bathroom etc, complete redec. Maybe find somewhere where there's scope to add to the living space or add an ensuite.

I'd hope to buy a 2 up 2 down as my first project, maybe spend 3 months or so working on it full time.

Yes,a caravan's a good idea if I could find a place with a suitable garden with access.

[Paddy]

...and living in it at the same time.

Anyone ever taken this on and lived to tell the story?

My rationale is that I'm in limbo with the proceeds from my sale & I don't want to enter into a long term rental.

Money down the drain.

Yes, there are obvious risks but fortune favours the brave and all that...

The main thing is to acquire something that I would be happy living in should I get lumbered with it through circumstances such as the market going belly up.

I have done a few of these. Go for it and buy at auction.

[Pip in a Poke]

I have done a few of these. Go for it and buy at auction.

Were they all profitable?

[northernladuk]

Which stable is this one from?

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Our house wasn't a "fixer upper" as such, you could have bought it and lived in it without lifting a finger, but it certainly could have done with some TLC and we ended up doing a lot to it. New boiler, replaced most of the radiators, various improvements to the electrics (nothing hugely expensive, just some new fixtures, sockets, moving switches etc.), had about 80% of the house re-skimmed, gutted and refitted the downstairs shower room and toilet, boarded out the loft for storage, redecorated the entire house including new flooring, carpet and joinery, replaced external doors, installed network cabling and speaker cabling, various bits of general maintenance and repairs. The list is pretty endless. By far the messiest job was our master bedroom which required the removal of a ton of lath and plaster from one of the walls.

It was occasionally stressful, particularly as it seemed like something seemed to go wrong for pretty much EVERYTHING, and it was probably a good 9 months after moving in before the house was starting to look habitable again. Fortunately we got most things done before the second child arrived. It also involved shuffling various bits of furniture between rooms - I think we all ended up sleeping in one of the bedrooms at various points as we emptied each room to work on it.

We plan to stay here for a long time and when we move again, I'd be quite happy to take on another project. Depending on the ages of the children by that point, it would be nice if we could afford to live somewhere else while the work is being done though.

[Paddy]

Were they all profitable?

Yes, the most important aspect is location eg: near train station etc.
Make sure it has a good roof and no large cracks. It is real is easy.
175k sold 350k

[d000hg]

Our first house probably meets this criteria. We converted a bedroom into a bathroom, fitted a new kitchen and downstairs bathroom, re-did the flooring and paintwork throughout. Not gutted totally but a fair amount of work.

It was OK, well I thought so, the wife hated it. But then we come from different backgrounds. My parents always bought houses to do up while living in them so I viewed it as normal, whereas her family bought houses already done up to live in.

I grew up in houses without heating and power, etc, as my dad would happily re-wire and re-plumb the entire house himself, fit new central heating, etc.