Renovating property to sell on

antiskeptic · 11-11-2020 6:17pm

ELM327 wrote: »

+1

The main money is in buying something from probate with 1970's interior and redoing everything in a modern clear look. Perhaps having to do some plastering and flooring too, along with check of the wiring.

Any more and you're into big money and less profit. Very easy to be margin negative very quickly on a property build.

Some old period properties are very well built and there older than 70's stuff thats tired but looked after. Its less age and more how much you've to do. "Solid and open to a lick" is a requirement that can potentially be met by any age of property. A good period will obtain extra wedge merely by being period. So if it's solid to start off with your quids in to begin.

Consider two similar properties. Ones got gun barrel poking up through the floor, the other painted copper. One's got an ancient gas boiler, the others got an old packaged Grant oil fired outside. One has a mix of windows pvc and wood, the other has brown aluminium d.g. One has old fuses, the other has red/black wiring and a half modern fuse board. Ones got open scrubby back garden, the other has half the back garden taken up with a hotch potch of sheds.

Most folk can't see the ease with which the one property can be turned vs the other. They don't know the shed will be extending the sides of a skip by mid afternoon first day in. Both look a bit dauting to them but theres a world of a price difference to the quick licker.

I was in checking out a beaten up old period one time. Lots of young hopeful couples with stars in their eyes - a flippers worst enemy. I was lasering a few dimensions as I went. A couple asked me what I was doing. " Its a dry rot meter" I said joking. "Oh dear, is there dry rot??"

The other competition is other flippers who are looking to quick lick like me!

beauf · 11-11-2020 6:41pm

Regardless of how well built in the 1970s. No one wants to live with bathrooms, kitchens, plumbing and wiring and heating and insulation that's half a century old.

It's like a house in 1900 in the 1950s.

Any house with "character" you will rarely buy cheap in the first place. It will be overpriced and probably a money pit. 1970s wasn't really a high point of architecture and quality. You probably will find some fool to pay over the odds for some clapped out gaff.

Hats off though if you can make 100k+ on flips. Some people are just really good at making deals and money. More power to them.

antiskeptic · 11-11-2020 6:57pm

listermint wrote: »

Who certifies an extensions insulation and windows are up to building regs ? Specifically

Building surveyor for the general nod that the (new extension) building conforms 'substantially' to regs. If no extensions, the BER guy (the kosher ones at any rate) will ask for photos showing the insulation thickness in a few representative spots and other evidences of BER related items.

Once you use them a few times (I get my own BER done before buy to find out precisely what I've to do to get it to x level on sale) they don't give you hassle once you demonstrate you can be trusted with their professional indemnity insurance

antiskeptic · 11-11-2020 7:18pm

beauf wrote: »

Regardless of how well built in the 1970s. No one wants to live with bathrooms, kitchens, plumbing and wiring and heating and insulation that's half a century old.

It's like a house in 1900 in the 1950s.

Any house with "character" you will rarely buy cheap in the first place. It will be overpriced and probably a money pit. 1970s wasn't really a high point of architecture and quality. You probably will find some fool to pay over the odds for some clapped out gaff.

Hats off though if you can make 100k+ on flips. Some people are just really good at making deals and money. More power to them.

It is usually as you say. But by no means universally so. And it's those occasional houses which have been invested in, but which look as jaded and clapped out as the ones that have rubber insulated wiring, which offer a prospect on the buy side

The 100K on a 3-400K sale is more than doable - but it comes down to finding those fundamentally solid houses and, very much moreso, doing something outside the ordinary.

Anything that is prized and rare will generate a comparatively exhorbitant price - houses are no different.

I'm no great dealer, indeed, I'd be poorer than average, not having, nor really wanting to have, the hard neck required.

I suppose I'm trying to give a bit of a steer (and perhaps encouragement) to someone who really wants to get into this game. For me its an occasional activity - I just haven't got the funds to string together the 2-3 overlapping projects you need to really start cranking out the profit.

In which a word to the wise: if you've only got finance for a single house you'll have a lot a downtime.

Waiting for a house to sale agree takes time. And no estate agent will consider your bid on your next target until you do sale agree on your existing house.

And until you have cash in hand you're a weak bidder. Cash and ftb mortgage offers will beat you

Closing sales takes time. Even longer, if a sale advances and falls through - which can happen on your sell and your buy sides. Or both!

You'd want to have a second form of income available to you so as to utilize this dead time.

antiskeptic · 12-11-2020 1:52pm

Google the PPR for

4 Warburton Terrace, Bray. A really solid big period sold for 240k in 2012. Had surface mount electrics and never had the floorboards up!. The folks bought it as a family home, warmboarded it, electrics, plumbing and heating and the like. But didn't extend (it was big to start with). Sold in 2016 for 610K. And again recently for 810k (its an awful location with folk rat running up the street from the seafront nightclubs at closing time. Utter pandemonium - my suspicion is that the latest purchasers are in for a shock once things open up again

)

Or Cluain na Greine in Shankill. Bought for 256K in 2014 (I bid about 10K less!) and after a slow flip (the flipper was, I understand, a developer knocked back by the crash seeking to get going again) sold 2 and a bit years later for 1.15mil. Granted, an extension put on and a gut job. But proof positive that there are excellent flips (or really excellent flips in this case) to be had for 'e 'oo dares'

beauf · 12-11-2020 3:46pm

Good insights. But they were doing it in a rising market, with shortage of supply which helps a quite a bit. Obviously they added value with the work they did.

But as you say, it can be done.

brisan · 12-11-2020 3:57pm

beauf wrote: »

That kinda flip would be impressive even in Celtic Tiger. I've seen no houses recently I could buy for 140k under the going rate and add 140k of value to it for 45k and in 3 months, for what is essentially is a cosmetic quick lick. Any houses I've looked at from 80s~00s really need 30~40k min to make them habitable and attractive to a buyer and arguably 100k+ to make them compete with new builds in the same area.

I have seen houses in hindsight I could have flipped for 20~40k for a quick lick, but thats because of supply shortages and prices rising, and unexpected sales for over asking price and even bidding wars on the right property. I would not be adding any value. It would have been high risk as well as when COVID hit we could have had a complete collapse. Could have gone either way this year. Looking less risky for next year.

I think its interesting how in one thread a some predict price collapse of both house prices and rents. But in another the exact opposite in terms of flipping.

The OP asked about flipping. He was pretty much warned off it. Thread now seemed to have turned 180 to say its entirely viable.

To be fair its viable if you know what you are doing and have access to labour at a good rate and are not afraid of getting your hands dirty
Cash rich receipt poor tradesmen are a blessing if you know them and work with them regularly
Its as another poster said having the experience to know the market you are selling to
We have sold a few properties without EA by young couples knocking on the door
Let the neighbours know you are selling and word gets around

brisan · 12-11-2020 3:59pm

listermint wrote: »

insulation, windows and heat pumps need to be certified ?

Heat pumps yes
Its an electrical installation as is in theory adding an extra socket

antiskeptic · 12-11-2020 4:51pm

beauf wrote: »

Good insights. But they were doing it in a rising market, with shortage of supply which helps a quite a bit.

True enough.

I'd be content with a mere 0.3mil takeaway from that Cluan na Greine in a flatter market

I haven't figured out how to flip in a worriesome or falling market though.

antiskeptic · 12-11-2020 5:00pm

brisan wrote: »

Heat pumps yes
Its an electrical installation as is in theory adding an extra socket

Actually, I think adding a socket to an existing circuit is just about the only thing you're allowed do anymore without being RECI. That and changing faceplates and light switches and the like.

Another reason for the quick n' lickin approach!

brisan · 12-11-2020 5:04pm

antiskeptic wrote: »

True enough.

I'd be content with a mere 0.3mil takeaway from that Cluan na Greine in a flatter market

I haven't figured out how to flip in a worriesome or falling market though.

Very carefully would be my opinion
I am 60 and out of the game now(it was only a sideline to my main job )
My brothers ,plumber and carpenter both self employed who worked with me have not bought a property this year
Too many unknowns and they are busy in their own work with people doing home improvements .
The carpenter is also a cabinet maker and he has already put in 3 kitchens with a price tag of over 40k this year
That include worktops tiling plumbing and electrics ,but not appliances .
People are spending money on their homes because they are spending much more time in them
Landscape gardeners are also out the door with work

brisan · 12-11-2020 5:10pm

antiskeptic wrote: »

Actually, I think adding a socket to an existing circuit is just about the only thing you're allowed do anymore without being RECI. That and changing faceplates and light switches and the like.

Another reason for the quick n' lickin approach!

https://safeelectric.ie/help-advice/controlled-restricted-electrical-works/
Looks like you are right
Rules and regs change too quick to keep up with
I wired my own place recently and had to show proof of ownership and union card with qualifications before the ESB would move the meter and connect up

12-11-2020 5:14pm

antiskeptic wrote: »

Or Cluain na Greine in Shankill. Bought for 256K in 2014 (I bid about 10K less!) and after a slow flip (the flipper was, I understand, a developer knocked back by the crash seeking to get going again) sold 2 and a bit years later for 1.15mil. Granted, an extension put on and a gut job. But proof positive that there are excellent flips (or really excellent flips in this case) to be had for 'e 'oo dares'

Can't believe this house sold for over a million!!!!
I lived in it for years, before the apartments were built & the housing estate in the garden! By the time I left, there was no privacy whatsoever. Someone was mad to spend that much!

antiskeptic · 12-11-2020 5:33pm

brisan wrote: »

T
Cash rich receipt poor tradesmen are a blessing

Pray tell how that works!

antiskeptic · 12-11-2020 5:36pm

brisan wrote: »

https://safeelectric.ie/help-advice/controlled-restricted-electrical-works/
Looks like you are right
Rules and regs change too quick to keep up with
I wired my own place recently and had to show proof of ownership and union card with qualifications before the ESB would move the meter and connect up

Yeah, RECI have it sown up with a self serving appeal to Health & Safety. I looked up the number of people killed through faulty elec infrastructure in the last 20 years and I think it was zero. Someone killed fixing a washing machine or some such.

But now you need someone with a cert to pull a cable from a fuse board. Roll eyes..

antiskeptic · 12-11-2020 5:40pm

bubblypop wrote: »

Can't believe this house sold for over a million!!!!
I lived in it for years, before the apartments were built & the housing estate in the garden! By the time I left, there was no privacy whatsoever. Someone was mad to spend that much!

Still a decent detached double fronted period gaf on own (if north facing) "land". A shadow of its former self but whatever shadow it cast fell on own garden (the apartment block was north so couldn't cast a shadow much

).

Went up for €950K but there was a run on it. Just not that many properties of that quality on the market in what was a bit of a boom time.

poker--addict · 12-01-2021 5:31pm

some interesting posts and views. thanks

Renovating property to sell on

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