buying my 1st home (advice needed)

[j1979]

ok so it looks like im about to buy my 1st place its a tiny 1 bed flat, but in a very good location. The flat is currently unihabitable as it needs a small kitchen, bathroom, and boiler system fitting.

im only looking at the basics, and not top of the range, but new stuff. my question is how much do people think it might cost to buy and fit?

any help and advice appreciated

[Tumble]

Learn to cook well on a tenner a week - you will be poor (I know, I'm doing it)

[Saracen]

Boilers are a bit of an unknown quantity. You need to check that out quite carefully, because there's no guarantee that you'll be allowed to put a new one where the current one is (or was). That happened to me. We have a purpose-built brick boiler room, but building regs (and boiler design) have changed, and we can't use it. So the boiler cost about £2000, but the conversion work to run gas pipes, water pipes and electrics added about £3500, because we had to move it half-way round the house.

If you need conversion work, it'll likely cost a LOT more than if you don't. Admittedly, this isn't a small (sorry, "tiny" flat), but I wouldn't want to guarantee that'll work in your favour. You might face issues I didn't, or it may just be a case of plumbing a new one in where the old one was. So I'd guess the boiler will probably be anything from something heading towards a grand, upwards.

As for bathroom, well you can get a usable sink, loo and bath for a couple of hundred or so, or you can pay thousands. If you want electric shower, that'll add some electrics work and may raise plumbing problems. Does it need tiling? If so, how big an area? And the cost of tiles varies from cheap stuff to handcut Italian marble.

Kitchen? Well, you could get away with a few hundred quid for hob and oven. But a ceramic induction hob will probably be £500-ish or more on it's own. And an oven could be from a couple of hundred upwards. If you want gas, do you have a suitable supply already plumbed in? If so, it'll maybe be as simply as getting the new hob fitted (perhaps DIY), connected and CORGI certified.

A BIG question will be how much actual work you can do yourself? If you can do the grunt work (competently), you can save a fortune. If not, you'll have to pay for it.

Just bear in mind that, if you want to stay legal, gas and electrics need to either be done by a competent and qualified person, or if you do some of it yourself, need to be done to current regulatory standards, and then certified by a competent person. And if you don't get that certification, expect issues when you come to sell the place, so DON'T skip doing it properly, IMHO.

[Cozwin]

Advice DONT lol i don't think anyone would recommend buying right now i mean with mortgages you'll probably get screwed.

[j1979]

im a cash buyer and its very cheap, under £45000

[Blitzen]

im a cash buyer and its very cheap, under £45000

Good luck to you with your buy.
Unfortunately though, if you think £45K is cheap, it will no doubt be alot cheaper over the coming months.

Real Estate has AT LEAST another 15-20% drop left in it yet.

[finlay666]

If you have to do all this work don't forget to lower your offer by the amount it would realistically cost to do it