Buying a half built house

lemon125

Hi all,
My other half during her trips after school came across a lovely house in an area we would like to live. The house is half way built or mayne 3/4 of the way there. From her cnversations with people she knows in the area they say the person who owned the house was building it to sell it on and that when the recession came he stopped building it. The roof and the windows are in, I dont think that the electrics are done, not sure about plumbing, i doubt it. Driveway etc are all covered over at this stage. No garage.

Do ye think it'd be worth talking to him to see if he would sell the house as it is? And what value would be on a house that is half finished like this?

lemon125

lemon125 wrote: »

Hi all,
My other half during her trips after school came across a lovely house in an area we would like to live. The house is half way built or mayne 3/4 of the way there. From her cnversations with people she knows in the area they say the person who owned the house was building it to sell it on and that when the recession came he stopped building it. The roof and the windows are in, I dont think that the electrics are done, not sure about plumbing, i doubt it. Driveway etc are all covered over at this stage. No garage.

Do ye think it'd be worth talking to him to see if he would sell the house as it is? And what value would be on a house that is half finished like this?

First thing to find out is how much it would cost to finish, then deduct that from the cost of a recently sold (not asking price) house in the area.

Another option is to find out how much has already been spent on construction (materials & labour) not including the cost of the site, and negotiate around that.

The housing market is so screwed at the moment, there are bargins to be had!

There's one just down the road from here like that!

diarmuid05

lemon125

It's definitely worth doing a bit more research, i bought a unfinished house in October, probably a bit further on than the one you are looking at, it had windows and doors,skirting and sanitary.

The builder was in a similar position he was building to sell it on, but recession hit and he ran out of money so couldn't finish it.

It's all worked out pretty well for me, it was on the market for 200k "as is" i offered 160k got it for 170k

I'm up to my neck in work at the moment trying to get it finished by xmas. but hopefully we'll get there in the end.

Things i found along the way.
1) Finance - getting extra money in my mortgage on top of asking price to finish was a real pain - but got there after a lot of form filling.
2) There's a lot of work to do, a lot more than i thought and i was lucky i got a brilliant tradesman who pretty much did everything for me.
3) you have to go and pick and pay for everything from paint to carpet and tiles to floors and kitchen etc - this isn't really a bad thing we got lots of enjoyment seeing how things turned out.

I guess all in all i'd definitely recommend it.
i now hav a 4 bedroom house with office and a huge gamesroom, 4 bathrooms, huge kitchen with utility on a half acre site only a few miles from where i grew up.

It might not be for everybody but it definitely worked out for me.

There's a lot of pain involved, but sitting in front of the open fire at xmas i reckon it'll be all worth it.(until spring and i look outside and realise there's loads to do with the gardens )


sorry for the long post (as i said there's a lot to do)

best of luck with it
any questions give me a shout

Diarmuid

sydthebeat

lemon125 wrote: »

Do ye think it'd be worth talking to him to see if he would sell the house as it is? And what value would be on a house that is half finished like this?

firstly, check to see if you CAN buy it....

check the planning application conditions in your local authority and see if any 'occupancy conditions' were included...

lemon125

Yeah, The GF said the man in question is fairly wealthy and thats why he didn't bother finish it, but no doubt he still has a mortage to pay for this site he wont get rid of any time soon.
I dont know the man at all but he would know of my and my GF family as we live about 5/6 miles away. Hopefully I will get the balls to go talk to him at the weekend. I just dont know where the starting point is with it. I suppose worse case is he will just say not interested. And if he is humming and hawing at least he knows there might be someone in the area willing to take it off him. Might even get a look around the house to see the condition of it or the drawings maybe.

mickdw

If this was originally being built as a house for sale, then hopefully no occupancy conditions attached to planning.
If you do go ahead, be sure that there is certification for all aspects of the works so far.
Sometimes, people can go ahead mortgage free and have little regard for planning conditions & current regulations. Also get it thoroughly checked out structurally.
Get a professional to assess value of works to date. By the sounds of it, it is the cheaper part of the build that is completed. Its the finishing out that will eat money and even moreso with current energy regs.

lemon125

Thanks for yer replies lads,
I checked with the local authority and there wasn't any 'occupancy conditions' on the house. I rang a friends who's an auctioneer also for advice to see how to approach the man and i visited the house at the weekend.

So last night i rang him and asked him is it for sale or would he be interested in selling it. Thankfully it wasnt a straight out no, but he did ask who i was and who the GF was so hopefully being from the locality and when he asks about us he might like to help out a young local couple. I dont know, maybe were clutching at straws. By talking to him he didnt seem to have much time at present to finish it off and was very busy. He took my number and said would call back if he was interested. So I cant do much more. Thanks for yer help, if i get positive news I'll be back on for advice again.
The only thing is i'll be dreaming about it for a few weeks now!!