8 - Holmbridge Huddersfield

House 8 - Holmbridge 

Photos before 

Under dwelling Over dwelling wombelling free!

House number 8 - A charming one bedroom under dwelling deep in the heart of last of the summer wine country. Next house along but one  is where Thora Heard lived. Overlooking the now nature reserve  mill pond with picturesque views of the village beyond. Not only is it in a fantastic location, It's about 100 meters from where I live.
Originally marketed in it's previous condition for 110k, things did not pan out very well - it was tenanted at the time, then it all turned sour with the tenants followed by neglect then 1 sale agreed which fell through due to taking so long. It had now been on the market for over 18 months and was about to be taken off.
 A bit of hard bargaining over the next 24 hours and yes! 60k sale agreed.
Cash speaks volumes - there is always someone out there somewhere looking for a quick sale for cash especially on properties like these, where most lenders wont lend on them as they  can come with more problems than your typical house (as I was about to find out) 

I've never done a property of this type before it's going to be interesting to see how it all pans out.
It turned out to be a job and a half  - a lot more emphasis on damp proofing than ever before.  lots and lots of repairing everything - it was in a state of disrepair - mainly down to previous work done to very poor standards.   Still a lovely little cottage with original features which people just love!  Quite a stressful job at times though - down to situations beyond my control (neighbours) One of my biggest tests was not to fall out with the neighbours - very testing as I was flooded out from the neighbours above, scaffolding up for 5 weeks while they had their roof done, their central heating pipes used to rattle all day long in the winter and it drove me MAD. Then there were the  neighbours from hell next door. - a young couple who liked to party (and fall out).  left rubbish outside everywhere - including on my property, the smell of weed wafting all around the block, and coming through my front door into the living room while the buyer's surveyor was there. Then there were the dingles as we called them next door but one with their knackered old caravan taking up 2 parking spaces, rabbit hutches and waste out front and they used to let their dogs poo right in front of my house and all the way along the track! I said I'd never do an underdwelling again after this one and this is Holmbridge not Milnsbridge!

I used  Holroyd and co again for the estate agent with me to do the viewings as I only lived across the road. It  was only on 2 days and it went for the asking price - 99,950 Then when it fell through from the homebuyers report, after which things really quietened down with all things brexit,  then there was the scaffolding that  had gone up on the front of my property while the house above had a new roof  and that took around 6 weeks. 

A few months later I decided i’d be better off using a local agent on the Holmfirth high street, switched to Simon Blyth and dropped the price 10k, then it sold again and went through this time.  

 

Photos after

7 - Milnsbridge Huddersfield

House 7 - Milnsbridge 

 The agent did not do a good job of selling this house  - for a start she didn't want to set foot in the place  - ok so there was a bit of a pong and the walls were a bit brown with nicotine, the carpets were a bit sticky but I've viewed a lot worse. Then she proceeded to tell me about how I couldn't do anything with the layout upstairs  and that no one wanted a house with a downstairs bathroom - and the cellar - oh no not the cellar  - that damp dark foisty hole with the large manhole cover and mucky tidemarks around the cellar floor - I couldn't believe my luck - someone had already been here and fitted a sump pump, complete with DPC, timber treatment  and paperwork to go with it.  This house  - a through terrace was in my favourite place in Milnsbridge - Armitage Road and even closer to the shops than before.  

Photos before

The house belonged to a woman called Maureen who lived on her own, she had a thing about ambulance drivers, they were always coming round by all accounts. She started seeing one then started seeing the other, the last one she ended up marrying - moved into his and put this up for sale. It went on at 70k and after a few weeks and no offers she accepted my offer of 60 cash no surveys.

A change of tact this time  - no more mortgages with all the associated fees  - it was a cash purchase. I'd just sold 5 and 6 within a short space of time so just had enough to buy outright and the funds to renovate would be done this time from a supermarket bank loan. Best move I ever made in this business. 

I couldn't wait to get stuck into this job, and with lump hammer and crowbar to hand I set about stripping out the upstairs. After 1 day and sleeping on it I decided not to put any kind of bathroom / wash facility upstairs and keep it where it was on the ground floor, so had to re-build a partition and door frame on the landing - a costly mistake damn - it's easy to get carried away and knock seven bells out of a house when you first get the keys. The rest of it all went pretty smoothly - and 3 months later a transformation. Frank Shaw did an amazing job on restoring the dilapidated out building too, along with all the other plastering.
New plumber on the scene too - Chris Wood did a great job of the bathroom, Barrie Holmes Joinery got plenty of work on this job, Simon Christopher blitzed the garden big style again and enter Roy Kaye my new Kitchen fitter.
 Put it on with Holroyd and co down the road then 3 weeks later it was sold  - a new personal best record @ 95,000

Photos after

6 - Ovenden Halifax

House 6 - Ovenden

6 - Bought for 55,000 this was a bit of a gamble, first of all it was in an area I was not familiar with - Halifax, and a bit further away than i would generally travel to and from work. (still within my 10 mile search radius on right move)  As the saying goes - know your area - clearly I did not know this area - sandwiched between a rock and a hard place - in other words Ovenden and Boothtown  - not very smart! even worse than the last one.
Had a house like this been on my doorstep it would have sold for more than double in its original condition. It was not the cheapest round these parts (though still very cheap for what you got but I still paid 5k too much!)  I knew it could be a lovely little house done up even with its little quirks  and there was room for a small profit. I could get up 1/2 hour earlier and be at work an hour earlier than usual, and work an hour or 2 later to miss the traffic and get it rattled off a lot quicker. Im starting to get familiar with these kind of houses now so getting up to speed.

The deeds
According to the plan on the deeds I was buying the garden only, It all had to be re written with the correct outline including the house - this took 6 months to do at the land registry after I'd got the keys and it held the sale up by a good 6 weeks.  It would have taken a lot longer had it not been for my solicitor's persistence.
Another old lady by the name of Mabel lived here along with her disabled husband.
The disabled lift  - in recent times had been used as a transportation of the washing from floor to floor.
My  first job was to get rid of the lift. I'd been on ebay and seen these lifts sell for a few thousand, and thought this could be a nice little bonus! So i put it on ebay for 0.01p and not one person was interested. I tried phoning round companies in the north who specialise in these type of things and it turns out that the lift is now obsolete and you cant get the parts for it. Best thing i could do was pay someone £150 to take it away.
I thought no chance I'll take it apart myself and get it weighed in at the scrap yard.
Then set about dismantling it  - half a day in and getting hardly anywhere it was time to get the angle grinder out. My 4" grinder barely tickled the heavy duty powder coated steel, so it was off to buy a 9" one. I had to get this thing dismantled before the joiner came on Monday to patch the large hole in the ceiling where the lift came down through the floor into the living room. It took me all weekend, fortunately there was a scrap yard just over the road and 3 van loads later it was gone  - didn't get a penny for it but i was well and truly glad to see the back of it.

The cellar.
In the particulars it said surface water does flood into the cellar from time to time.
The same weekend of dismantling the lift there was torrential rain and it came up in the cellar about 6 inches then drained away slowly over a few days. I fitted a sump pump in the cellar  - a fairly  inexpensive simple job just labour intensive  with an enormous benefit to the house - the cellar no longer flooded  - yes  water came up but it went away just as quick, meanwhile i had to try and find out why it flooded in the first place. There was a blocked surface water drain at the front that went under the road and down  a hill where the  drain was broken and blocked with tree roots. The council actually did a fantastic job of tracing it and fixing it.
Also in the cellar there was a bit of a pong - and it turned out the sewerage pipe which ran along the front of the terrace under the pavement was cracked in 4 places, and seeping through into my cellar. This was the job of the water board who after a lot of keystone cops visits they finally got round to re-lining the whole drain along the terrace.
2 very big jobs done there and worth the council tax and water rates!
While the water board were there I was talking to an engineer and he was telling me about the very high water pressure in the area and advised to get a water pressure regulator valve fitted. what a great idea!
I'm hearing tales more and more about push fittings on pipework blowing out due to fluctuations in water pressure. Needless to say i had one fitted and will probably do so again on many more terraced houses to come.

Without going into too much detail a lot of work was done here on this house - new wiring, central heating, 65% plastering, joinery, etc etc etc still a lot was saved too in all I spent 10k on materials + labour + 6k on all fees (there was a large penalty on the mortgage for ending it early and council tax was 150% because it had been empty for more than 3 years andwas not claimed as my residence).
less my wages  a profit of 4.5k .
Once again I paid too much should have stuck with my original offer of 50  -  I was in too much of a hurry and the agent was bumping me up, It's very easy to get carried away.
This one  was never going to make good money, the only saving grace was that it was a lovely little cottage. I was lucky to come out on top. Oh well as the saying goes - you need to fail in order to succeed  - any more duff ones and i've had it!

Before 

3 months later

Simon blitzed the overgrown garden  

5 - Elland Halifax

House 5 - Elland 

Photos before - https://www.zoopla.co.uk/property-history/127-park-road/elland/hx5-9hz/28188199

Am i glad to see the back of this house!  Bought for 62,500 on a bit of a whim. Too eager to crack on and get another one done - the saying goes that you should be doing 3 or 4 a year to be a pro and this would be my 3rd. I'd been sat in my then accountants  reception and saw a leaflet with a photo of houses by the canal and thought to myself   - hmmm one of these would make a good project. When i got home I started searching rightmove and  google earth, everything from Marsden down to Mirfield, Hebden bridge to Brighouse and came up with this.

 Located on Park Road, Elland - (those of you who are familliar with it will probably be thinking now - oh no!) a bit further away than usual but still within my 10 mile search radius on Right Move. It had sold for 100k in 2007  (or so i thought - looking at the sold prices section - not realising that re-mortgaging  also showed up as sold prices and it turned out the three houses which had gone for around 100 within the immediate vicinity were all owned by the same person) Backing on to Elland Wood,  canal to the front and a very busy main road in-between!
At the time i was wearing my rose tinted glasses and everything looked rosy (including the very busy road).  It only needed a small outlay to get it up to speed and make a quick buck  - The wiring was less than 4 years old so was the combi boiler, all the walls were skimmed even the kitchen and bathroom were good. There were problems with the roof leaking and water getting into the house in various other places. A proper good clean, a few alterations and improvements here and there, re- decorate and carpets then when finished 3 valuations came in at between 80 and 90k - things were looking promising. If only it was all that easy.
I went with Simon Blyth as they'd opened a new branch in Ripponden close by and I knew some of the staff already from Huddersfield like Martin , Sam and Peter, only to be handed over to the new branch manager - Amy Baxter  - We never hit it off together and then when the homebuyer's report came back and the buyer had  a list of snags as long as your arm looking for every possible way to get money knocked off I told them no way and put it back on the market. 

Things went a bit quiet after that so I went with my regular agent from Huddersfield - Holroyd and co and then it sold for 75,500. When it did sell the second time there was nothing on the survey that the first surveyor had claimed was wrong with the place - that's the difference between a mortgage valuation,  a homebuyer's report and a different person surveying.
Very little profit on this one due to the time it took to sell  and the fees incurred from the interest only buy to let mortgage, utilities, council tax etc etc. I'll never get a BTL mortgage again, even more so now they've brought in stamp duty land tax on second homes. All these kind of BTL mortgages and repayments they all look good on paper - just like a business plan can. I remember doing a 5 year business plan once and in it 5 years down the line I was earning 50k profit a year  - it looked great on paper but it never happened that way in the real world. 

Before photos here  -
http://www.zoopla.co.uk/property-history/127-park-road/elland/hx5-9hz/28188199
and
After