3 Great Tips when Buying a House to Renovate

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The cost of buying a home is out of control, and if you’re trying to buy a new property, you probably won’t be able to afford the space that you want. But you can save a lot of money if you buy an older property, and then renovate it instead!

It’ll take a bit of work and you won’t be able to move in right away, but you’ll be able to get a lot more for your money. However, you’ve got to be careful when you’re buying a property to renovate. If you take on a huge project that you can’t handle, you’ll end up sinking way too much money and time into it to make it liveable, and actually be worse off. So if you are considering buying a property to renovate, here are some tips to help you make the right choice.

Always Get A Survey Done
This is the most important step when you’re looking at any property, but it’s particularly important when you’re buying a house to renovate. If all of the work that needs doing is mostly cosmetic, you’re going to be fine. But if there are big structural issues or a giant hole in the roof, that’s going to be incredibly expensive and time consuming to fix.

You need to remember the exterior of the house as well, because any damage could cause you a lot of problems with insulation and damp. It’s important that you are aware of any problems like this before you buy, otherwise, you’ll end up stuck with a house that you can’t afford to fix up. That’s why you always need to get a survey done - because you won't have the expertise to spot these problems

Planning Permission
When you look around a house, you’ll probably start making plans about what you’re going to do to it straight away. But what if you buy the house and then find out that you don’t have the permission to do any of that stuff? That’s why it’s important to look into planning permission and find out about things like party walls before you agree to buy the property. What is a party wall, you might be wondering? A party wall is any wall that you share with a neighbouring property.

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This can be a big problem when you’re doing renovations, as you’ll need to get a party wall agreement with the owner of the other property, if your work will impact them in some way. Always make sure that you find out what work you can actually do, before you commit to buy somewhere.

Be Prepared For Competition
The low price for these properties attracts a lot of potential buyers, especially as house prices are so high at the moment. So you need to be prepared for a bit of competition. The offer that you initially put in may be beaten by another buyer, so always budget a little bit extra, and don’t go in with your highest price first. It’s also important that you don’t get your hopes up because sometimes, somebody else will be able to pay more than you can afford!

This is a collaborative post.