Property Ladder S07E03

for the last 20 years we've seen an unprecedented rise in housing prices and it's this rise that saved the bacon of many first-time property developers but in the summer of 2007 everything changed and amatuer developers on the property market for the first time found themselves on an altogether bumpier ride [Music] there's so many people after our property that we're sort of humping each other trying to get hold of this issue house prices just go up we just had no idea that they would ever go down because you buy a property with debt you can find yourself in negative equity so not only have you lost the money that you put in you can actually earn more 13 million of us are expecting our property to provide us with an income in retirement that's a very concentrated risk [Music] adding space to add value is a basic principle of property developing tonight the novice developers are digging down or is one of the most expensive and therefore riskiest ways to make money even in the good times you don't have a little bit of water you've got a pond down did you have a survey done for water we have an evaluation survey done for the wall in the basement there is no foundation so we got an underpinning to do and here dry rot wood worm a lot it's late 2007 and the once buoyant housing market is starting to slow even so like millions of others data consultant Chris Whedon and his wife Jules a bank manager hope property developing could help provide a pension they think they found the answer with this 2-bedroom 400 year old cottage in sheer sorry but my does it have problems not only is it falling apart at the seams it's also absolutely tiny but with no loft to convert and planning won't allow an extension there's only one option left we bought the house with specific intention of turning the seller into kitchen changing layout if we start digging and we come across problems then were stuffed that's our profit down the drain and that scary stuff because when you start digging down flooding undermining the foundations and the lack of natural light all expensive problems that can easily come your way did you have a survey dump we bought it we had a valuation survey done for the mortgage so you didn't have a structural survey we've also been next door and it's in very good condition I think we assured us it else would be as well was in good condition next door may have converted their basement but this project still feels like a major flyer to me too especially when the housing market starting to become jittery and then you take a peek at the figures they bought the house for three hundred and forty six thousand pounds there's a hundred and fifteen thousand pound budget which is very small for such a big job and the target sale of five hundred fifty thousand would break the ceiling price for similar properties in the area on these numbers that make a good eighty nine thousand pound profit but I think even without a downturn in the markets these margins are dangerously times and how long is it going to be till this is finished between eight and twelve weeks it's a tough call I mean I put sixteen weeks on this as a realistic timescale there's gonna have to be some pretty amazing project management to make this happen in nine weeks and the reality is you've bought a 400 year old cottage that semi derelict this is your first development and you're doing all of this in a flat market with an optimistic resale price hoping to make eighty nine thousand pounds yep Mikey and it's not just their schedule and resale that's ambitious this is one big development the cottage is set out over four storeys on the top floor there are two bedrooms [Music] with another bedroom and bathroom below underneath is an unusual arrangement of a ground-floor living area and a lower ground floor kitchen and WC which provides access to the basement underground Chris and Jules rightly want to knock down the internal walls to open up the small lounge and then turn the lower ground into an appealing Garden room but it's a dark basement below where the plans go awry the idea is to excavate down to get enough hit height to put a new kitchen diner in only there won't be a single window to the outside world so this is where the nuts and bolts of this development is you've got a huge amount of work to do down here to turn it into a kitchen it's a lovely big space and now you're digging the floor out so we get proper head height which clearly you need to do but the big problem with your plan is that it has no natural light yes and I think that's it that's a huge floor in it but I have got a suggestion take the floor back and open out the whole of the section the big challenge when you're converting a basement is to draw in natural lights here I would move the WC down to the rear of the new kitchen and knock through the wall to the basement area to bring in as much daylight as possible what do you think of it as an idea I can see the benefits to him it's really just sitting down with a piece of paper I'm really working out as to whether he would improve the selling price maybe even if it costs 5,000 pounds it's certainly worth doing it just will move this development from feeling like it's a little bit Kosta phobic to giving it space to breathe so definitely give us the wow factor this is what we're looking for yes make his decision the next 24 hours because they dig up the cellar tomorrow so they can start the work but if we're going to be doing some massive changes we've got to make a decision so you've got a builder tonight 33 miles away in East London's trendy Bethnal Green neat graphic designer Pete an interior designer Louise nearly married this couple are hoping that Pete's own flat will secure a future income for them for the last 10 years Pete's lived on the ground floor of this converted upholestry shop and like Kristen Jules and sheer this couple think that it's the basement which will give them the greatest return it's going to make a great living space when we're done but I've just been chucking rubbish down there for the last 10 years it's a big job the whole thing is a big job loos we've got a bit of experience but I've I've never done anything like this before and I'm terrified frankly Pete's basement is so big it will double their living space and make them some desperately needed cash we don't live together yet we both work from home so we both need our own studio space really and at the moment my flats not big enough and this place isn't either so we need to move on and find a bigger place well that make the marriage last four years take a long time to persuade the landlord to sell it to you about six years here so you must be pleased very very pleased yeah I got a very good price for it as well so what was that was hunting 50 pounds and you've done well already I think so yeah there's possibly as much as 100,000 on it just as it is if we were said it today so are you not tempted to cut and run Pete bought his flat in April 2007 and unlike lots of people buying at the time he got a real bargain it's now February 2008 and with the UK market cooling they could do a lot worse than walking away with a clear hundred thousand pound gross profit but this couple have other ideas they're hoping for a trouble-free three months development costing 90,000 pounds and they want to let the property for 500 pounds a week in theory that's a very respectable 11 percent return on their investment but if they encounter problems with this ambitious conversion that could slash their return very quickly indeed this is quite a challenge doing this you have any experience or idea how stressful developments often are no it's our first what if it doesn't work Pete and Louise may be laughing now but they couldn't have chosen a riskier time to be attempting such a complex first development they could easily be digging a very big hole for themselves by the tonight's developers had started digging out their basements economists were still debating whether a recession was on its way whatever the forecasts one thing was certain the housing market had a story but for Peter Luiz Mordor in Bethnal Green East London there's no going back they're hoping to secure their future by developing Pete's old upholstery shop into a two-bed rental property by converting one massive basement like you've really started yes we have so um so what's this is this the swimming pool [Laughter] it's a massive space you guys yeah yeah and it goes right the way back so that you're not through at the end you'd get like two outside yard back yeah but it's a lot of digging and there's a lot of water you've got to get a lottery I think the cost of raising this floor will come in at quite a lot less than digging out down here you wouldn't have to pinch more than a couple of feet which I still give you a reasonable head Heights we did comparative votes and they came in roughly the same yeah the problem with digging down is you never quite know what you're gonna hit and tell you start doing it I think if you want to keep on top of costs it's probably best to raise the floor because that's a quantifiable job someone can see and and they can give you a post for well there's a lot less unknowns it's not only digging out this huge space that could hurt the finances there's also PETA news idea for the layout downstairs in the basement they're planning to dig out 15 tons of earth to create just two bedrooms there'll be a master with ensuite at the back leading to an oversized storage area and second bedroom to the front [Music] upstairs is little more than a glorified revamp with the kitchen and shower area leading through to a large open-plan living space I think is a way of upping their total rent by as much as 30% your priority with this development really needs to be to get the rental value up and to get the rental value up as much as you can you need to get three bedrooms in here I think for the sake of it will be worth doing it's certainly something to consider isn't it I mean we need to look at the plans and size of the rooms I still think that a good open living space will be quite valuable to people that want to you know Pete and Louise could be missing one very lucrative trick upstairs the first thing I'd add is a large bedroom and bathroom at the back while keeping the lounge in the light front area basements are great for kitchens and theirs would fit directly underneath crucially there would be room for two more bedrooms and bathrooms to the rear we wanted to keep the feel of you know the commercial property really with the high ceiling and the big windows at the back and keep this as a nice open plan living space I think the important thing when you make the decision though is to come back to why you're doing this yeah it's all very well if you've kept the integrity of the building but you still can't own a nice place together and live together I think we need to we need to discuss and not be so emotionally attached to it and try to make a decision wherever you want to really carve this place up into three bedrooms or two the bigger the basement the more potential in the conversion and Peter Louise's is one big basement but they could be throwing away its potential by not getting the right ratio of bedrooms to living space it's intense and being challenged about everything that you've held quite dear for quite a long time even if it's just shop is just a shot we've never really wanted to put three bedrooms in here but obviously for profitability then it is that's what I do I'm not convinced as yet that that's what I want to do an hour and a quarter away and share Chris and Jules Whedon are on day one of their development the house is a 400 year old wreck but they haven't done a structural survey and have a mere nine weeks to do the job they originally planned the windowless basement kitchen though I've suggested it will be relatively easy to punch a large opening into the sizable garden room to bring in some natural lights having spoken to Tony our builder about Sara's idea we know it's gonna look good so that's what we've decided to do there's still no escaping the fact that this is a precarious development the building's ancient the margins are super tight and they're digging down into the unknown in the basement we found that there is no foundation so we've got some underpinning to do and obviously there's cost implications as well and here this timber is completely rotted away dry rot woodworm the lot which is a main support for the top of the staircase all these bits and pieces need to be addressed and need to be addressed quickly [Music] to resolve these problems that's going to cost a whopping extra twenty thousand pounds and that's for Chris and Jules back to in the cost of the basement kitchen we decided to go through the local supplier to the kitchen so it's a bespoke high quality and an individual kitchen and will give us the wow factor we're looking for so despite the additional unbudgeted cost of repairs they're still going to turn on the kitchen it's nice finish it's a crazy expense that's not lost on Tony the Builder they're not thinking about the costs they could have a cheaper kitchen you know granite worktops fine but cheaper carcasses they're causing the cost of spiral they could save at least ten thousand pounds by getting an off-the-shelf model and with the market already starting to drop off I honestly believe Chris and Jules could end up making no profit at all in Bethnal Green Pete and Louise are starting out on their massive basement conversion we decided to take Sarah's advice rating the joist rather than digging down some because of the risk we thought that would be safer we were worried about the ceiling height I think I think it'll work Peter Louise potentially saving thousands by raising the floor rather than excavating into the unknown that's one of the big decisions out of the way I spoke to six local estate agents and they were all with the opinion that Sarah's idea of having three bedrooms would increase the market value by up to sixty thousand pounds and rental value by possibly a hundred pounds a week so there's something we couldn't sniff out really the extra money could really help his new ease secure their future so far they seem to be going with my ideas but they're both creative designers and a week later they're not as convinced by other suggestions I think we felt that would be lovely to have a really beautiful kitchen that you walk in off the street into it would be more conventional to have the sitting room upstairs and go downstairs to kitchen breakfast dining space with a table and it's sort of more normal layout at the moment we're quite happy yeah I mean I really like having look at the idea of having the kitchen up here it's just you know I didn't put our heart set on that however hard you try the levels of natural light will always be compromised in a basement and when space is tight it is kitchens that are most suitable for being underground more often than not they're artificially less they also have plenty of surfaces that can be made reflective to lift the level of brightness a pallet of light tones can further enhance a fantastic subterranean selling feature I mean this is undeniably darker down here isn't it than upstairs it makes more sense to have the kitchen in the darker space we've thought long and hard over and we've got to make decisions and games and there are wise it's not going to get done so I think we've made our minds up with their way yeah thanks thanks what they say in share with full-time IT and banking careers Chris and Jules are finding it almost impossible to give the basement project their full attention and that means they're practically never on site at the same time as the builders I'll be on site over the weekend so I can see what you've done I just can't like it during the day this week simply sorting out the weak foundations and rotten Timbers has taken them over halfway through their unrealistic schedule and the structural work to open up the basement is only just beginning there's masses to do in a very short period and it's a crucial time to be properly managing the site you have given yourself a very very tight schedule and you both got full-time jobs in you're hardly on site at all and and it's also running very fast and do you feel like you're totally in control of this site not totally in control of this site Tony is the Builder but he's also the project manager so it's a situation that we have had to put a lot of trust in here I just worry that that having a very very short edge will not being around much having finished it in that time or being left with no builder decisions need to be made and things get rushed through and then the problem with - rushing it too much is that to go back and think no we shouldn't have done like that it's late then really most of the decisions are obvious well let's hope so because because if they're not obvious and they're wrong this time it's your money on the line isn't it we've had lots of meetings with the Builder before the project started so we're confident in that team she's thinking along the same lines as we are I have no clear direction it's it's kind of ad hoc I'm doing what needs to be done because I haven't seen the client for for a week now to make money from developing in today's difficult market you have to get the basics a hundred percent right including the project management but Christian Jews are everywhere very very wrong [Music] in Bethnal Green Pete and Louise are on site every day and they're well on the way to dividing up the upstairs to create that all-important third bedroom yeah it doesn't it doesn't really feel like a upholsterers anymore now I don't think it did from the moment we'd sort of be made of a three bedroom project don't regret what we're doing for an instant now I've got a much bigger life now you know with Lou and lots of stuff to do so financing that life relies on fitting to more good bedrooms and bathrooms downstairs in the rear half of the basement conversion Lou's been working on the design but plants can be very hard to visualize so it's a good idea to clearly map them out so this is a corridor into a shower room here and then going through here this is a bathroom and then through here into one bedroom and then down here through into another bedroom to fit the beds in you're going to have to have the pillows here and the bed will take up all of this space if you want to open the window or sleep on the other side of the bed you've got to climb across the bed like this to open the window and and to clamber back again which I might hardly sort of luxury living really is it I think that is a way around it the bedrooms are too small and the bathrooms are too big the simple solution is to swap the layout so the bathrooms take the hit on space and not the bedrooms with too much better bedrooms with this layout on the face of it I think this could work I think you're right about having one or two larger bedrooms rather than rather than that one large one and two small ones now shall we get a better price the property that's interesting it might not be easy but slowly and surely these two are coming around to a developer's way of thinking in sheer Christon chills are still only managing to get down on site at weekends when the builders aren't around the job is carrying on without them and was just four weeks to go the majority of the work is still to be done not metope around the house I mean I've not been by but you know if it was my project personally I'd have a lot more in pain so Chris and Jill seem to be oblivious to what's going on here and it's stressing me because I'm just making all the decisions they've now got this wish list of you know knocking out structural walls log burners oak floors specialist kitchens things like that and we're 20 grand over budget I don't see them soon don't have a meeting don't discuss the costs and things like that I'll be pulling my men off the job in shear Chris and Jules are struggling to combine their IT and banking careers with managing their basement conversion they're so rarely on-site that they're not just worrying me behind schedule but completely out of touch with the changes being made Tony's been working on the basement conversion with a minimum of guidance and when Jules gets down there it's a million miles from what she'd imagined our foot and that the staircase would be slightly wider Tony so coming today seeing it this size I was a sort of slightly disappointed because the lightish here is going to be a key feature of this room for me to put a bigger staircase in yeah you would you would just have no bigger toilet you know no room for you and it's no room for boiler no room for your fridge it's kind of a compromise tony has built a huge cupboard for the boiler cutting in half what should be a fabulous 8 foot wide open staircase the WC is now on the other side further obstructing the view so what was supposed to add light of space has suddenly become very dark and pokey it must make it terribly dark sound that doesn't this let's go down so you've built a loo here and then you've boxed in the other side to have a boiler and you've ended up with a space that was gonna be open and light shutting it back in again how did it get so far I think he was just really just creeping along and as we turn up inside things are being done it's our fault for not being on site often and there's always a way around any problem you just have to persevere with it and for the sake of a few thousand pounds you can move that boiler onto the side wall which would take up less space and and lose all the that joinery around it and then you'd open this back up again you've lost so much space that I think that you need to lose the downstairs they all together if we don't have the toilet there then does it affect the property I mean it's not ideal but you also compromise on space down here I don't think you can afford to have a downstairs loo I want to go with what you're saying because the idea of letting more light in is going to be the best thing to for this project and to get the ralph factor we were looking for originally so it's just we just need to tell Tony [Music] over in Bethnal Green Pete and Louise are reworking the layout downstairs to make sure they get two good-sized bedrooms but the schedule is starting to slip in fact they're just two weeks off their deadline the problem is these two designers can't stop tinkering with the plans this time it's the stairs it feels up to me we would have this job done in an hour eight weeks but because of these change is gonna slow to sound quite a bit and delayed us Peter Louise should have decided on their stairs weeks ago the way that a staircase is designed can make a huge difference in basement conversions I think I found just the place in West London to show them why this is the perfect example of what I feel you should be trying to create mm-hmm you know you keep envisage that staircase in our house couldn't yeah yeah absolutely the stairs sit flush against the external walls of the property in an open design that allows as much light as possible into the downstairs what's great about this is the simplicity of just having the wooden steps and the plain glass means that your eye isn't drawn away from the important thing which is the great open spaces and and the living areas you're not concentrating on the stairs themselves we had to look at lots of different kinds of staircase isn't it really this is the sort of thing that they were after if we can get it within the budget how much is in your budget for the stairs we're looking on the outside of town grand I think you should be able to achieve something like this for that so figure in the big scheme of things for really nice contemporary stairs this is that the the cheaper end of things it's definitely the direction I think we want to go yeah definitely good news for the stairs then Pete and Louise can now get cracking on a design I think it looks really really good a week later the front of the flat gets a facelift and when at last the staircase arrives the end is in sight they're finally getting on top of their first ever development it's been five meetings before work and flight meetings after work and that we can in a lot work enormous amounts of stress really the art wasn't expecting third bedroom and bathroom and the staircase had definitely taken his way over our original budget but then yeah the specification stack we love these papers a spec of the whole flat really really happy it'll be worth in the end in sheer Chris and Jules maybe three weeks over schedule but they're doing the courageous thing the boiler is being moved onto a side wall and the WC has been taken out feels like a large kitchen as opposed to another kitchen galley kitchen before that's what it's gonna weigh down White was now this is open planned very much open plan with all the delays it's now crucial that they get finished as quickly as possible the bathroom is the last big job on this development I found out the other day that it's actually a cast-iron roll-top bath which is a bit of a nightmare it weighs 115 kilos on its own I've now got to reinforce the floor reinforce the oak beams that run from side to side because by the time that's that's got a grown person and it's full of water it's going to weigh best part of a quarter of a ton probably more than quarter of a ton that's a lot of weight for this very flimsy floor is so heavy it has to be winched into place it takes a major maneuvering but finally the bath is hovering in position I love my roll top bar but I'm really worried about it because Tony the Builder as told me that he thinks it's too big and he's also said that there's not gonna be enough room between the baths and they think and the bathroom the toilet and I'm really worried that that might be the case I think the bath needs to go and it's not just because of its size Wow so why have you got a massive Victorian mouth we didn't want a modern bathroom suite in their 17th century cottage so you've got a 17th century cottage and then couple hundred years later bathroom you're just sort of mixing matching old things with anything does that count 1950s when when's your cutoff found Victorian was the perfect or the sort of buyers who around here I think this is an old cottage it's really sweet but I think they are savvy design conscious buyers and I think a sleek and contemporary bathroom would absolutely fit the bill in terms of your potential market my concern is that you need to do what's right for this house not have an interior that you just personally like there is a little bit of us in there but he looks good so there's no swaying on the bathroom in Bethnal Green at seven months since Peter and Louise started their epic basement conversion and wow what a conversion er is their old our poultry shop has been completely retailers Pete and Louise were sure they want the kitchen in the front room of what a kitchen it is they've combined dark wood and shiny steel and spotlights for a really high-end finish perhaps even a little too high end for hard-wearing rental must be very pleased with it yeah yeah yeah we're pretty smug yeah it's come out all right it's still gonna be a little bit annoying and say that I I think it's a bit odd that the kitchen is here when it comes through the door here you kind of come into this great space and it's just a bit odd that it's a kitchen love than a living room do you pleased with it no second thoughts so no regrets at all may be no no it is lovely in lights the big question mark always was though what's it like downstairs with the sitting and I says is it quite dark down there no you get plenty of light down there as well yes sir just fine the stairs down continue the wood steel theme with glass panels adding an extra dimension of openness the front of the cavernous old basement is the property's biggest transformation again the styling is immaculately contemporary but does it pass muster as a living room and the glass lets as much light as you possibly could get down here but I think that raising the ceiling has made a massive difference in the sense of space and we still think it's a shame it's not the kitchen down here but it does improve it dramatically having this higher ceiling stacking the two living areas to the front means room for three bedroom suites rather than the two Pete and Louise had planned adding the kind of major value you need to compete in a tough market the budget rose from ninety thousand to one hundred and twelve thousand pounds which isn't bad looking at the spec the big question now is whether the market which changed beyond all recognition during their development will provide anywhere near the 500 pounds a week rent they were hoping for on the range was market I think they've probably overspent I think if you were doing this up to sell on certainly the specification would be very good very clever rather than the floor and Lex amazing the height in here most people who are trying to sell can't as we all know which means they're flipping over to the rental side which I'm fortunately saturating the market simple supply and demand dictates there everyone's going to be scrapping for a telling us the prices will come down as well three bedrooms three bathrooms I think this will certainly appeal to the professional rental market in the current market I'd hoped to achieve around 485 pounds a week I would give this property a rental value of five hundred pound per week I'm very confident that we could achieve a figure of five hundred and fifty pounds per week we've had three agents and evaluates for rental and they fellas at 485 pounds a week 500 pounds a week and 550 pounds a week that's great it really is great I mean we've worked so hard yes and and I'm really glad that we've got pretty much what we were looking well a little better than we were hoping for so you've done incredibly well you bought very well which is the key and obviously you did this to rent do you know how much it would be worth now if you were to put it on the market we could guess around don't know 380 something like that we have had three agents and also to value it just to see what they said and they came in at 385 420 and 450,000 mm-hmm that's 50 grand shy of half a million us yeah so you'd make a profit if you sold it off between a hundred and twenty three thousand and one hundred and eighty eight thousand pounds I think you'd be better off setting it now than then renting it out and then selling it in a couple of years time when someone's ruined your beautiful finish oh girl this is difficult and if we could get 450,000 for it by selling it straight away then I'm gonna put you on the spot which you think sell or rent she said yeah itself a while later Pete and Louise decide not to sell and are now renting it out for 540 pounds a week that's a good 10% return but personally in today's market I would have cut and run [Music] but in shear it's a different story as the Fallen house prices threatens Kristin chooses to hannahmont train what we started the project there was no indication that the market was going to crash Chris and Jules are finally putting the finishing touches to their basement conversion since they started this project house sales in Surrey have dropped by 47% but this couple are still convinced their development has got what it takes to beat the prevailing property prices there's not a great deal of property for sale here and it's such a sought-after village that how this going pretty quickly when they do come on the market so we're hoping that even though in this current situation with the market we should still be able to sell it very quickly [Music] and if first impressions will do it then this house has a wheel chance and inside isn't half bad either you'd never believe it was the same tiny living room but it's downstairs were the major successes in this development Chris and Jules made a lot of expensive mistakes but they persevered to achieve a great opening into what was once the basement even if they did blow the budget in the kitchen this is just fabulous when you think about what this used to be a damp and dark and dingy cellar with low head height and and no natural light or misses this is a transformation we're really pleased that we took your advice on making it wider because it's more lighting and of course the news of the garden are great now two lessons we learned from this one clear accurate concise plans and two project managing it and being on site often those two things would have meant that we wouldn't have had to have undone some things upstairs they've kept the bedrooms clean and simple which is the right thing to do with the limited space on offer [Music] although the bathroom perhaps feels a little bit too elaborate [Music] so you stuck to your guns and decided that you're gonna stay with the roll-top Victorian bath are you pleased with the end results really please start anew well now I think it's um I think it's a slight hotchpotch of styles this is this is based on your own bathroom at home is this very similar yes my god blimey that's swivels your head your head no the actual that does move okay so penguin times five foot five yes which is help which is not tremendously tall even with its swiveling yes you're not ready to stand underneath they just don't just a little show you and then do both but I mean otherwise you got to stay within this circle yeah I hear and then you've got to get it you've got to underneath it but all swiveling on to you with the curtain rose you like this yeah well look here selling it to a small thin person this is certainly not an economy bathroom together with the kitchen and a raft of building problems - Chris and Jules managed to get anywhere near their original budget you start out expecting to spend about 115,000 on this development and we've had a few problems along the way how much did you end up spending near a hundred and forty one just under that Heights this was a full refurbishment with structural work I think it was always a bit unrealistic your schedule angel money on this from the outset Chris and Jules have relied on outperforming the local market to make a profit but giving me a mount they spent they would now need to do that just to break even and with buyers so still on the ground things are looking very tricky this really is the feature of the the property this is a fantastic run it adds significantly to the sale ability and to the value probably adding 50 to 60 thousand pounds Gudrun main selling point of the house I think but a contemporary bath you might have got the bath in one end and have a separate shower cubicle at the other end which would have been better I would value this property at four hundred and ninety five thousand pounds in the current market I value this property at five hundred thousand pounds you have had two valuations and those valuations have come in at four hundred ninety five and five hundred thousand so if you took a lowest valuation that'll be an 8,000 pound profit and if you took the highest valuation that would be a thirteen thousand pound profit what do you reckon that whether its profit of effort that's put in I don't disappoint yeah yeah I really felt we were sort of head towards the 550 I think the difficulty is is that there's there's five hundred thousand pound stamp duty threshold I'm just not sure it's quite good enough to be able to take that leap above half a million pounds but if I was you I would put it on it for $9.99 fifty quits and chills decide against this and put the house on the market for five hundred and forty nine thousand pounds but six months later with house prices still falling and no interest from buyers they decide to rent it out for sixteen hundred pounds a month we're in property development for Molly and after the amount of time pain and effort that we put into that we were not gonna walk away with thirteen thousand pounds we're not put off by doing any any future developments because my passion is interior design and developing houses so this is just a hiccup in the overall plans and they were just wait and wait for the prices to go up and then move on luckily the positive of recession is the interest rates go down so with the rental income that we're getting from it we're in a very comfortable position so it's still winning and when we sell at the right price we'll win again basement conversions are one of the trickier ways to add square footage so it's more important than ever to get the basics right you need to start with a good solid set of figures have good project management's and make sure that you've done your homework anything less and in today's market digging down can be an easy way to bury your profits next week our property developers dreams of making a profit from two massive conversions face the dawn of a decimated housing market everything went from fabulous rock-bottom overnight and the bubbles burst that's it is finished [Music] you you you

Channel: SaliusenEx

Views: 68,101

Rating: 4.8846154 out of 5

Keywords: Property Ladder, Sarah Beeny

Id: DhF5QdjbOts

Length: 45min 25sec (2725 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 24 2018