Potential house move again....

WiresDreamDisasters

So we saw a house last night that we quite liked. It was a mid-terraced house closer to my sister-and-brother in law, closer to my friends, closer to the school we'd like to send the nipper to, and closer to a more fun and up and coming area of London - back towards Colindale basically.

Currently we are in Queensbury, which is dead - grubby, downtrodden, smashed glass everywhere, drunks near the tube station all the time, just generally not as nice. We're in a 3 bed semi-detached on a main road, about a minute away from the tube station.

You know the drill - two biggish rooms, and one tiny box room. So not only is the area boring and lifeless and old, but it's also pretty loud and annoying. Plenty of obnoxious things going on that just piss you off and grind you down little by little. Boy racers bombing around the streets every night, horns and cars blaring away. But.... the flipside of that is, I can make as much guitar noise as I want. Literally no-one cares. Not even the neighbour. In fact they told me to make as much noise as I want.

Our garden is a bit small, and we're sort of triangled in with three neighbours. So you never really feel a sense of privacy in there.

So the potential new house....

The house is in a small quiet road. It's mid-terraced. Brick walls. It's ex-RAF, and needs some work. It has a garage at the front of the house that joins another garage, but is not joined on the other side. It's 5m x 2.5m, so probably big enough for a home studio room. The three bedrooms in the house are all big. Two doubles, and one large single, which with a bit of knocking out of a non-structural wall, could be another double easily. There are also a few other opportunities for knocking out non-structural walls to create a nice open plan space. There is no door into the garage from inside the house, so one would need to be added, and the old door bricked up. Probably needs one or two skylights adding to it as well in order to let in some natural light.

It has a bigger garden, and it's more secluded. But it's on a bit of a hill, which is a little weird.

It doesn't have any central heating. It has those old warm-air-vent systems, which would need to be ripped out and replaced. The ground subfloors are concrete. But in general, it's in good condition. Just needs some amount of modernisation.

It's a much larger house. The current one is 74sqM. The potential new one is 123sqM.

I guess I'm starting this thread to ask for advice and kick around ideas. We've only been in Queensbury a year, but I'm kinda done with it already. Wanna be out and into a home that we can call a proper family home. I prefer the area we used to live and wish we'd never moved, but you take your chances and you take your risks.

Also financially... does it make sense to sell a typical 3-bed semi in favour of a 3-bed mid-terrace that eventually could be a 4 bed, with a bit of work.


I think we can afford to sell our current one and move into that one, all whilst only porting out existing mortgage, which the bank says we can do. But I'm not sure right now what money we'd have left over for improvements.

octatonic

Have you factored in stamp duty, moving costs, agents fees etc?

"Also financially... does it make sense to sell a typical 3-bed semi in favour of a 3-bed mid-terrace that eventually could be a 4 bed, with a bit of work."

Maybe.
Depends on how you do it.
Our 3 bedroom terrace in Acton went back up for sale after being renovated by the owner.
We had renovated it to a point, enough to sell and make a profit on.

They turned it into an amazing family home, did the loft, went out the back and to the side downstairs.
It was seriously impressive work they did but I did a back of the fag packet calculation and I struggle to see they would have made any money at all doing that.

You can easily overcapitalise on properties.
Is that a problem?
Well if you want a family home to live in for 10+ years then it doesn't matter.
Capital growth will likely outstrip any expense.

Personally I'd get to the outskirts of London, get some nice scenery, less stress.

Jalapeno

Personally I'd get something that worked towards getting something detached eventually - then you can do what you like short of hosting Drewstock in your garden with total impunity.  I think anything attached is a gamble noise/neighbour-wise. If you do go for it check that the lofts are adequately separated, older places can have next to nothing between properties.

Our last place was largeish terraced Georgian place, one side really pleasant, kids running up/down stairs at breakfast otherwise silent. Other side people were very pleasant but ... she was a fitness trainer and wanted to have blaring discovating music and elephants tap dancing throughout the day, they used to go to bed late and put the TV on really loud, AND they had a 3year old who had screaming nightmares every night - needless to say the walls were paper thin. We sold up and moved into rented (detached) accomodation to all our friends dismay until we found our current gaff over 20years ago.

Simonh

I would say if you don't like where you are living and can move without to much of a financial impact then do it.

We lived in a house (that we really liked) for a very long time with a neighbor that went out of his way to cause as much stress as possible. We only stayed there as long as we did to make sure we could afford school fees, fancy cars and 2-3 holidays a year without ever having to give a second thought about affording it.

When the school fees ended we moved within 18 months (it took us that long to find the house we wanted) and withing 2 months we were berating ourselves for not having moved 10 years earlier and modifying our lifestyle it made that much of a difference to us.

So long story short, feeling happy in your house is probably more important than many things.

strtdv

Do the bank know there's no central heating? Depending on the bank it may not be mortgageable.

Ex-RAF to me means that if you want to put skylights in the garage you'll need an asbestos survey, and they'll probably find some that will cost a fair bit to remove (non-london prices could be £5k)

Otherwise sounds like a much bigger space with lots of potential

boogieman

I wouldn’t blame you for moving again, Queensbury sounds a bit grim. 

I think the answer depends on if you’ll make any profit (or how much) and how much stress you’ll let out of doing it up, cos that seems like quite the project. From your previous threads I know you’re happy getting stuck in to diy jobs but it sounds like you’ll need pro builders in for a fair bit of the work, and they won’t come cheap if they’re half decent. You’ll need trades in to do electrics, heating etc too. 

Prolly don’t need me to say this but check out the neighbours really carefully before you commit to a terrace. I had a two up two down terraced place as my first house… bloody nightmare. Old couple on one side, the husband was deaf and loved playing Vera Lynn, Max Bygraves etc really loud. The other side was a single mum who spent most nights having strenuous and noisy sex with a whole string of junkie boyfriends. Her bedroom was next to ours. We could never get away from noise, day or night.  

mgaw

Personally I would relocate to North Cornwall and live an outdoor beach orientated lifestyle 

boogieman

mgaw said:

Personally I would relocate to North Cornwall and live an outdoor beach orientated lifestyle 

Well ok, I‘m sure some people would love to do that, but what about your job, your child's schooling, keeping in contact with family and friends, the lack of infrastructure, transport links etc etc? It might sound idyllic on paper but it’s definitely not for everyone. 

TTony

boogieman said:

mgaw said:

Personally I would relocate to North Cornwall and live an outdoor beach orientated lifestyle 

Well ok, I‘m sure some people would love to do that, but what about your job, your child's schooling, keeping in contact with family and friends, the lack of infrastructure, transport links etc etc? It might sound idyllic on paper but it’s definitely not for everyone. 

Drew in Cornwall .... can you imagine???

TTony

WiresDreamDisasters said:

closer to my sister-and-brother in law, closer to my friends, closer to the school we'd like to send the nipper to, and closer to a more fun and up and coming area of London - back towards Colindale basically.

If those are your definite requirements,  then use the Rightmove website and  create your own search area, save it, and get alerts whenever anything new in that drawn area and price bracket comes onto the market.  That'll also show you which agents are active there, so you'll know who to hassle for the stuff that's not yet listed.

I'm guessing the London property market is the same as other parts of the country about which I know more - ie, there's a dearth of properties for sale, and anything that does appear is snapped up quickly.  That makes it easier for you to sell, but will limit your choice of what to buy.  Having recently moved once, with all the costs and upheaval,  that's makes a move now riskier, just because you might end up compromising and taking something that you wouldn't otherwise consider, just because there's nothing else available.

But .... how much time do you spend at home vs visiting your sister/brother in law?  There are other schools in other parts of the country (not Cornwall!) and your money will go a lot further outside the M25.  If you move somewhere bigger/nicer, they might spend more time visiting you instead.  You might even make new friends ...



(OK, forget that last bit!)

axisus

Yay, come back to Colindale! Lovely Colindale!

I say go for it. Sounds like you want to. You will forever wish you had if you don't.

Actually Colindale isn't that great, maybe don't get too close.

gavin_axecaster

strtdv said:

Ex-RAF to me means that if you want to put skylights in the garage you'll need an asbestos survey, and they'll probably find some that will cost a fair bit to remove (non-london prices could be £5k)

Don't know about that - I've just had an asbestos garage roof replaced and the asbestos removal was £230+VAT, all legal and above board. Garage is slightly smaller at approx 8x2.5m

I'm just outside central London and the company I used covers the whole of the South of England.

Now the replacement roof to be able to add skylights will obviously need to be more substantial than my plasticoated corrugated steel jobbie, so I can see significant cost involved there.

p90fool

If I've learned anything from this thread it's that there is an actual place called "Colindale".

I did a gig in Ludlow years ago and outside the venue was a grafitto saying "Colin was here", which was the most Ludlow thing it was possible to say I thought. 

strtdv

@gavin_axecaster it depends on whether you need to remove much for the builder to actually be able to do the work, I was thinking of the amount to remove an old roof, remove the asbestos cement board from under it, and put the roof back on. (Source; my brother in law was an asbestos surveyor and gave advice to my brother when he was looking at a house that had a new roof put on over an old asbestos cement board roof)

For small amounts of asbestos cement board (but not blue or brown asbestos) the council might collect it for free if you remove and double bag it appropriately (I know Belfast city council do this).

kin

@p90fool that could have been my late Uncle Colin, he only had three fingers and dated a gypsy girl called rose, he lived in Craven Arms and would of considered travelling as far as Ludlow as definitely worth commemorating with a bit of grafitti...hang on though, was Colin spelled right? 

boogieman

p90fool said:

If I've learned anything from this thread it's that there is an actual place called "Colindale".

I used to live not far from Drew’s old place. Colindale has the RAF museum, on the site of what used to be Hendon Aerodrome. There were loads of aircraft factories around the area at one point too. It’s mostly all gone now, there’s a huge amount of new build flats on the site. The Peel Centre, the old Met Police training college was very near there too. 

scrumhalf

Given the amount of development going on in Colindale I would be wary of moving there until they had the infrastructure sorted out. On the bus going from Greyhound Hill up to Colindale station it's reminiscent of East Berlin, and there's buggerall in the way of shops.

It's similar to what's happened in Mill Hill. Numerous developments have gone up and there are no shops. Waitrose at Mill Hill East looks like it's been looted at the weekends.

WiresDreamDisasters

scrumhalf said:

Given the amount of development going on in Colindale I would be wary of moving there until they had the infrastructure sorted out. On the bus going from Greyhound Hill up to Colindale station it's reminiscent of East Berlin, and there's buggerall in the way of shops.

It's similar to what's happened in Mill Hill. Numerous developments have gone up and there are no shops. Waitrose at Mill Hill East looks like it's been looted at the weekends.

We used to live there. Right opposite the police station. I really liked it. Checkout the plans they've got as part of the Grahame Park regeneration. It's gonna be fucking annoying when they replace the tube station, coz that's a year or more of downtime I would assume. But they're planning on doing up that whole area. Eventually it'll be closer to Central London stature.

WiresDreamDisasters

TTony said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

closer to my sister-and-brother in law, closer to my friends, closer to the school we'd like to send the nipper to, and closer to a more fun and up and coming area of London - back towards Colindale basically.

If those are your definite requirements,  then use the Rightmove website and  create your own search area, save it, and get alerts whenever anything new in that drawn area and price bracket comes onto the market.  That'll also show you which agents are active there, so you'll know who to hassle for the stuff that's not yet listed.

I'm guessing the London property market is the same as other parts of the country about which I know more - ie, there's a dearth of properties for sale, and anything that does appear is snapped up quickly.  That makes it easier for you to sell, but will limit your choice of what to buy.  Having recently moved once, with all the costs and upheaval,  that's makes a move now riskier, just because you might end up compromising and taking something that you wouldn't otherwise consider, just because there's nothing else available.

But .... how much time do you spend at home vs visiting your sister/brother in law?  There are other schools in other parts of the country (not Cornwall!) and your money will go a lot further outside the M25.  If you move somewhere bigger/nicer, they might spend more time visiting you instead.  You might even make new friends ...



(OK, forget that last bit!)

I've done this on Zoopla. Seen a bunch of houses pop up.

The main issue is, in that area of London you've got a few options....

- Loads of flats. That come with ground rent and services charges, which was part of the reason we moved from the flat in the first place.
- A fair few brick mid-terraced houses.
- A scant amount of end-terrace houses.
- A scant amount of semi-detached, and those typically lie in the range of £540k-600k, which is outside of our budget.
- Quite a lot of wooden timber houses which are hard to get mortgages on, and hard to sell when the time comes too.

What we're looking at effectively:
- We can sell our current house for £515K
- We can buy for £425-500K
- After accounting for all costs, we'd have £20K to do the new house up. Which becomes more or less realistic, based on the condition it's in.

We saw a big mid-terraced the other week. We could've got it for £395K. But it had a lot of issues - first of it, it absolutely stank of fags, and sweat, and dirty clothes, could've been a body underneath all the trash we saw for all I know. It had a flat roof, with signs of water damage internally, and once you extended out the dining room area and made the kitchen all sexy and open plan and what not, you've basically lost half the garden at that point. It was a stones throw from the school, and close to mates and family and all that. But the amount of work it needed just really put us off. Probably 4 months for the extension, and a few months on top for redoing the bathroom, the electrics, etc etc etc.

If it had been an end-terrace, probably would've gone for it.

sev112

scrumhalf said:

Given the amount of development going on in Colindale I would be wary of moving there until they had the infrastructure sorted out. On the bus going from Greyhound Hill up to Colindale station it's reminiscent of East Berlin, and there's buggerall in the way of shops.

It's similar to what's happened in Mill Hill. Numerous developments have gone up and there are no shops. Waitrose at Mill Hill East looks like it's been looted at the weekends.

Is that modern East Berlin or the 1960s ?

Simonh

I know london prices and all that but nearly £500k for a mid terrace? ouch...