‘It’s minging!’ - but home could still earn pair a profit
CITY COUPLE
A LEICESTER couple left speechless by the state of a house they bought at auction could still make a profit on their investment - despite it being labelled “minging” on national TV.
Jas and her husband Harpreet, who own a printing firm, featured in an episode of the BBC’s Homes Under the Hammer this week, where they were seen buying a house that was in need of tender loving care - and then some!
Bought for £67,000 at auction - after an initial price of £25,000 was suggested - the inside revealed why the Burton property had such a low estimation in the first place.
As Homes Under the Hammer showed, the ordinary-looking mid-terraced house didn’t have a roof, lost to a fire, while a tour inside saw host Martin Roberts taken aback.
“Here’s the kitchen - let’s leave pretty quickly, because it’s pretty minging”, he said.
The “rear living room” was full of damp, with Martin saying: “My guess is that when there was the fire, water was sprayed in and it’s all come down here. The whole house smells damp.
“This is one of those properties where you’ve really just got to imagine what it could be.”
The front living room was in “equally terrible condition”, with mould everywhere and rotting furniture.
Such was the terrible state of the first floor, there were signs on the door leading to the stairs reading “do not use”, “warning - unsafe flooring and ceiling” and “do not enter”.
Martin asked: “What’s been damaged in terms of the structure of the building? Obviously the woodwork will have been burned, but how far down does that go?
“Are the joists in the first floor damaged? What kind of damage has been done by the water?”
Simon Parkes, from Frank Innes estate agents, was brought in to inspect the property.
He recommended making the downstairs open plan and installing a third bedroom in the loft - suggesting a rent of £620 per calendar month and a sale price of £115,000.
For Jas, the dream was a whole refurbishment along with plans to install a loft room and increase space in the main living room by removing the chimney breast.
But the scale of the work came as a surprise to her - and she admitted to not having seen the property in detail before buying. The state of the interior had left her “speechless”.
To overcome the house’s numerous problems, Jas revealed she intended to spend £30,000 doing it up - more than half of which was spent by the time the show returned five months later.
However, at this point work to fix the home’s roof was still ongoing, with scaffolding still in place on the exterior.
There was good news on the inside as Jas and Harpreet had installed a dormer window for the spacious third bedroom, which they said that they were considering turning into two rooms.
Grand plans also involved the couple touting the idea of installing a downstairs bathroom off the kitchen.
Despite spending £18,000, Jas said they still had to pay for wiring, plastering, bathroom and kitchen.
Estimates undertaken by estate agents at this point valued the house at around £85,000 at auction - a figure that would just seen the couple break even. However, they were told that this could increase to as much as £125,000 - and therefore a sizeable profit - if they completed renovations.
The episode can now be streamed on the BBC iPlayer.