General Chat

Thanks McAnne, I shall be taking photo's of the 'old wreck' 'Before' and 'After'.............

will take some of the house as well ;)

xx

Good luck Rose - I shall look forward to following your adventure :O))

LOLOL Thanks Merlin ;))

xx

Rose, Been there, Done it, never again. ( BEWARE) bad tenants and B devious Letting agents.**M**.Best of Luck though.

I thought I should keep a diary of my first venture into 'Buy to let' and here is as good a place as any and some of you might find it interesting ( forewarned is forearmed also lol! ). It hasn't been signed and sealed yet but hopefully won't be too long now.

It is a three bedroomed house on what is generally termed an 'area of social housing' I thought quite a nice area , quiet road ( it seems) and a lot of greenery plus a small play park nearby, a middle terrace ,with a garage in front and a garden behind.

On the viewing of it we went in with little hope of it being a decent size, from the outside it looks small and as soon as we walked in that impression was emphasized by the darkness of the hall,. What we had taken on the agents photo's to be tongue and groove right up the stairs was in fact 'T & G effect' wallpaper, dark and horrible to match the dark and smelly carpets lol. There were two storage cupboards though which will be useful.

The lounge is fairly small, first impression again dark, peachy walls , brown carpet and an old and ominously stained mock leather settee. The ceiling (artex! aaaagggh ) looked to be discoloured by nicotine, but on the plus side...erm ....thinks hard , it had decent looking radiator and sockets :)

A downstairs loo off the hall, and then into the kitchen...which is big! that was a pleasant surprise, T & G on one wall , real and not in bad nick, sink under the window and a couple of adjoining units which I doubt will be salvageable but need to look at that , if i can use them it will save money!

Back door into the garden which is overgrown , brushcutter needed lol, but does appear to have a path and a few nice plants maybe, a rusting rotary drier and an old rabbit hutch . Well fenced I think. Next door on each side they seem to be gardeners , both look cared for which is a good sign.

Upstairs, past the awful paper , top of stairs in the bathroom , not big and probably in need of gutting, though if I can save the bath and loo would save money . But it was light .

Three bedrooms, all had matresses in , I won't describe them, you don't want to know lol! Ist bedroom Wall paper is horrendous 1980s , dark green floral, making the room seem much smaller than it actually is, green carpet . 2nd room mix and match ( not) paper above and below one of those awful borders ( apologies if you like them , i don't :) )
3rd room very much a single, childs room probably.

First thing I need when I get in ( assuming all goes to plan!) is a large skip, to clear out carpets and matresses and then start stripping the paper to see what lurks beneath .

Exciting , if a little scarey! the scariest bit is waiting to get experts in to decide whether gas and electric need updating...that's where the finances will be hit I fear!

Rose xx