Homes Under the Hammer came to Nottinghamshire this week to look at an "uninhabitable" Skegby property that two local businessmen completely transformed into a beautiful place to live. Despite paying well over the guide price for the dilapidated house at auction, the buyers were delighted to hear from an expert that their investment had been worthwhile.
The house was on auction for a guide price of £45,000, but business partners Saeed and Rob paid £94,500 for it. When they bought it, the house had such bad water damage from a broken pipe that the council had put a prohibition order on it meaning it was deemed "unsafe for human habitation".
This meant that Saeed and Rob were not allowed inside the property before they bought it, and nor was presenter Dion Dublin, although he did open the door to have a peak. He could see heaps of rubbish, exposed wires and stairs that were so badly damaged they had almost disintegrated.
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On the outside of the house, the garden was so badly overgrown it was impossible to see how far it went back, and from some angles the property was difficult to see through the vegetation. Shortly after the property was bought, Saeed said that Rob was the one to have found it, and that he hadn't realised the seriousness of the damage.
He told Dion: "It's a mess. I didn't realise how bad it was but it's nothing that can't be dealt with." He added that the pair had rescued worse properties before, although admitted that he hadn't been aware of the prohibition order when the property was bought.
Property expert Jim Demitriou, from the auction house that sold the building, said there were some benefits to the house. He explained: "Because the inside needs completely remodelling it does open an avenue of all different manor of things you could do to the property. If it was me looking at this, you completely gut it, take it back to brick, you could possibly even look at an extension like some of the other houses in the neighbourhood have done. So there's lots of opportunities."
Saeed and Rob got to work and 13 months later Dion returned to see what they had done. In an incredible transformation, the two men had done up the house beautifully, making it unrecognisable from the awful state they had found it in.
With the help of 20 skips, they had gutted the property and started from scratch, fixing the structural problems and adding stylish décor to make it a comfy place to live. They already had a tenant in place, who in return for cheaper rent, had agreed to tackle the overgrown garden.
Rob said: "When we first had the keys we were shocked because you couldn't actually move in the property at all. There was a bad leak, there was no stairs in the property, they'd fallen through."
But they said that fixing the water leak was easier than they had expected and that although they had thought they would need to change the roof and guttering, on closer inspection it was actually fine. This meant they were able to do the renovations for £25,000, a lot less than the £35,000 they had budgeted for.
When expert Jim returned, he was astonished at what Saeed and Rob had achieved. He said: "Oh my goodness, wow! When I came here last time, what an absolute mess. We weren't allowed inside the property but the little glimpses that I got through the windows, it was devastating.
"Come back, it's really really homely, it's cosy, we've done everything to the property and we're actually allowed inside this time so it's really really nice that we can do that. It it's a really cosy really nice property in a lovely quiet area and I think it's really good what I can see today."
Saeed and Rob were pleased to hear that Jim was impressed, but what they really need to know was had their investment been worthwhile. Jim said that he estimated the house would now be worth around £800 per month on the rental market, which was about what the businessmen were expecting.
They had agreed to rent the property for £700, as they already knew the tenant and he had agreed to work on the garden, but they were pleased to hear their expectations had been correct. Jim then revealed that if the house were to be put on the market, he would value it at £160,000, which Saeed and Rob were delighted with as it was more than they were expecting.
The cost of the property and the repairs combined had been £119,500, so their decision to buy and do up the house had clearly been the right one.
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