Episode 14 Britain's Empty Homes Revisited

'Over the years, Britain's Empty Homes has been on a mission to show what can be done

'to revitalise and transform some of the UK's estimated

'one million empty properties.'

Nice to see you again, David. Hannah, how are you?

'In this series, I'll be catching up with some of the people who took the plunge

'and staked everything on turning unloved houses into bespoke family homes.

'Today we'll be catching up with a 22-year-old tackling

'a complete renovation project all by himself.'

This room is virtually all my handiwork.

'We'll be with some dedicated empty property officers,

'whose job it is to turn abandoned buildings back into homes again.'

Wow.

'And we'll be in Stoke-On-Trent discovering how they're

'breathing life back into their empty streets.

15 months ago, I met Michael Hims, a student from Birmingham,

who'd taken on his first home,

and with it his first renovation project.

And guess what? He planned to do all the work himself.

Back in November 2011, 21-year-old Michael was renovating this

previously empty 1930s semi-detached house.

When I got the house, the house had been vacant for about two years.

It just generally needed to be completely redone from scratch, really.

I'm more than happy to put the work in,

so it seemed a good investment for me to buy it, really.

The house had cost £107,000

and Michael bought it with the help of his mum Fiona,

who was acting as his financial guarantor.

I helped Michael with the deposit,

so I put the deposit up for him to apply for the mortgage.

Everything else since has been funded by Michael.

Michael was studying to be an electrical engineer

and planned to do the majority of the works himself,

despite having no renovation experience.

I think I'm ambitious with what I'm trying to do. It's a full renovation.

Rewire, new plumbing, new drainage, all that sort of stuff.

Michael had big ambitions,

but a relatively small renovation budget of 15 grand.

He'd already spent 12,000 of that,

but was still determined to make a hi-tech home his priority.

I'm looking to do, like,

an integrated audiovisual kind of system and have speakers

throughout the house and the sound will follow you from room to room

and make the house react to what you're doing, what your daily routine is.

Michael saw this as a long-term project, so had moved

back in with his mum while tackling the construction work.

I haven't got a move-in date as such.

I don't see that it's something worth having

cos when it's ready it's ready.

There's no point trying to aim for a certain date.

Well, that's interesting! I thought we were working towards June 2012.

Um, but I appreciate Michael,

um...can have as much time as he needs.

He can't! He's got to be out of my house by June!

'I was concerned that Michael had taken on an awful lot

'and that his budget didn't match his ambitions for the place.

'When I first met up with him, I was keen to find out more.'

-Hi, there, I'm Joe.

-Hello, nice to see you.

-Nice to meet you.

Hi, Mike, how are you doing? So this is the place?

-It is, yeah.

-You're an interested investor?

-Yes.

So you're going to see how your investment's coming along.

-Absolutely, yes.

-Excellent. Shall we go inside and have a look?

-Yeah.

-OK.

Wow!

This is very much a building site.

-Is this your handiwork?

-Yes.

I'm looking to do as much of the work as possible.

All the electrics, all the pluming.

The only thing I'm not sure about is the plastering, but I'll see how that goes.

What happens when you come across something you don't know how to do? How do you learn it?

There's plenty of people you can ask.

All the manufacturers give out guidance.

If not there's online forums you can go with.

What is the budget for renovating, well, it's a whole house like this?

-Yeah, the budget originally - well, still is - is £15,000.

-OK.

And to date there's probably about £3,000 left over.

And how much more do you have to buy just in terms of materials?

Materials-wise we're pretty much there. All the electrics are ordered.

All the plumbing and plasterboard. It's just pretty much the kitchen.

You said a minute ago, "I don't know if I can plaster."

From what I've seen of other properties, that is

quite a skill, and not something you can just pick up overnight.

Is there room in the budget to bring in a specialist

contractor like a plasterer?

There will be room if there needs to be room.

But the amount of work I'm doing anyway, I'm happy to do it.

So I just kind of see it as another step, really.

Tell me about the electrics. What's your vision for the house? What do you want to do with it?

Yeah, well, I'm looking to have a centralised audiovisual kind of install

and kind of automate the heating and lighting systems,

even remotely for the heating, logging on the internet

and control different aspects.

A little bit of audiovisual has already gone in, is that fair to say?

Yeah, I've already fitted out a home cinema screen.

That had to go in at this stage

because of the structural changes that had to be made to accommodate it.

Yeah, it had to, Fiona! It had to go in.

Firstly, you don't need plasterboard...

-It's priorities!

-..you need a 100-inch TV screen.

-Can I see it in operation?

-Yeah, sure, there's a remote here.

-It's actually up there...

-Yeah, it's actually within the ceiling now.

So when it's plastered over you won't be able to see it.

These joists would have gone all the way across, but you've stopped them doing that.

You've put in an extra one at the end,

-so they don't go all the way across, so you can fit this in.

-Yeah.

You restructured the whole floor...

Yeah, the whole floor was redone just to put the screen in.

That's mind-boggling.

'But what about the rest of the house?'

-So clearly this would be the kitchen, is that right?

-Yep.

21 is very young to take on and renovate your own house

with no experience, but, as Mike's showing, there isn't much to fear

if you can get the right advice and consult the right people.

It's pretty admirable, isn't it?

I mean, I'm hugely impressed.

I think he's showing a dedication to something he believes in and

when he gets stuck he'll ask for information.

But he's got a drive and a vision that hasn't wavered,

really, from the outset, and I think that's a huge credit to him.

Later we'll see what happened

when I took Michael to meet Wayne and Elaine Kelly,

who'd bought a dated semi-detached house

and used their know-how to realise its potential.

Across the country, there are many buildings like Michael's

just waiting to be discovered and renovated.

Local council empty property officers carry out detective work

round the clock to reclaim abandoned homes and make them habitable again.

Jason Hall's beat is Richmond-Upon-Thames

Richmond's an affluent area,

where houses tend to fetch between £500,000 and ten million pounds,

so it's not a place where you might expect to find many

vacant properties.

But at present Jason has over 125 empties on his books.

It seems crazy that people would leave the properties empty

and run the risk of having squatters break into them

or damage done to the property and lose value on them.

It never ceases to amaze me.

Just over a year ago, Jason was visiting a building

he'd been campaigning to save for three years.

Built in the late 1800s, this huge house

and industrial unit had been empty for over 20 years.

The plot itself was potentially worth as much as £1 million.

The previous owner kept it primarily to house two classic cars.

The owner had left it to get into a really poor condition

and due to the fact that all the different problems

that we'd come across, we were looking to take possession.

For a long time, Jason struggled to find the owner and inevitably,

the building became of concern to the community.

In recent years, it's quite serious.

We've had squatters on a number of occasions.

Basically, it was just overrun and wild.

Eventually, after much pressure from Jason,

the place was sold to a local developer

who was converting it into two large houses.

-Are we good?

-Nice to see you.

Jason met with the developer and the council planning officer

to see how the works were progressing.

-We're going to retain the original house which is this part here.

-Mm-hm.

And the extension which is added on much later,

we're going to extend the roof across and turn into a completely separate dwelling

which will be a three-bedroom house but we'll preserve

the character of the old house on the front facade and at the rear,

we're obviously going to change it somewhat to bring it up

to more like today's requirements.

So it's going to be a modern, contemporary house on the inside...

-Yeah.

-..but the original features on the outside.

While the building wasn't listed, it was located

in a conservation area so the council were keen to retain

its original character.

It's like it's one house as opposed to two

so it looks like it was all the original building as opposed to

the printworks off the side at the moment which looks like an addition.

Preserving all the original features with the wooden windows and the

railings back to the outside, it's going to look stunning building.

Really impressive.

So after 25 years,

the future for this beautiful house was looking much brighter.

-Thanks very much. Nice to see you.

-Thank you, take care.

-Cheers, bye.

-Bye-bye.

'Without Jason chasing around some of these empty properties,

'they would sit and become more and more derelict

'for years and years and years.

'It's not for lack of people trying to track down the owners,'

it's their reluctance to actually sell these properties.

Today, Jason is back in Richmond to see the near-completed project.

The first impressions of the building,

it looks absolutely amazing.

It's absolutely nothing like what it was before.

I just can't wait to see inside it.

He's arranged to meet the new owner, Clifford Hamilton,

on-site for a guided tour.

Cliff. Hi, Jason. How are you doing, all right?

-Very good.

-What do you think, starting to look a bit better?

Looks amazing, doesn't it? From a few months back,

-would never have thought it'd look anything like this.

-It's a massive transformation.

As you know, all the Crittall windows, we've taken out,

we took out the doors from the garage

and obviously we put a roof on and blended it in.

-Would you like to have a look inside?

-Absolutely, yeah.

-Come round and have a look.

-OK, lead the way.

Clifford has transformed this once-crumbling edifice in this

prominent location into two impressive family abodes.

Wow.

You see, this is how all empty properties I have an involvement in

should look afterwards when they're brought back into use.

We're very pleased with how it's turned out.

Clearly, no expense was spared on this refurbishment.

We put this huge skylight in which lets in a lot of light.

It's really good. The media system's just going in at the moment.

It's not quite finished but by the time it's finished,

we'll have a small cabinet down below

and you'll be able to sit and lounge in...

It's a kitchen/family room, really.

This house's homely renaissance has taken over a year

and provided a few nerve-racking moments.

During the excavation of the concrete floor in that area

over there were two World War I bombs which caused

a bit of excitement, we had the bomb squad down here,

we shut the road off for a few hours

and had to move on but fortuitously, we haven't found anything since.

We should be safe, then. I'll tread carefully!

This five-bedroom, three-bathroom family house

has been renovated to a high standard

and will carry a hefty price tag

when it goes on the market in a few weeks.

We received loads of complaints about this place leading up to it

being sold and you buying it.

Is everybody happy in the area now that...?

Is the feedback good from the work you carried out?

I think most of the residents have stopped and shaken my hand

as they've gone by. They really are pleased with the way

the corner's lifted.

Clifford was determined to restore this grand Victorian home

rather than knocking it down and building flat which had been

the intention of the many other prospective buyers.

The old saying "old is gold" is very true.

It's a wonderful-looking building,

it's brought back to live for another 100 years.

-Old on the outside, then looks like this.

-New on the inside.

The reason this property's so exciting for me

is that it's been empty for so long, looked really, really bad.

It was an absolute eyesore in the whole neighbourhood.

It's in such a prominent position

and now to see it returned to use, to me,

that's an absolutely fantastic success.

Finding somewhere in the right location at the right price

can be just the beginning of a long and arduous journey.

But with imagination - not to mention quite a lot of hard graft -

really, anything is possible.

Six years ago, Tim and Lindsay Keyes bought this abandoned former chapel

in Flintshire with plans to turn it into a luxurious family home.

-It was derelict.

-Empty shell. Nothing in it at all.

No floors, nothing, basically.

We have to try and imagine putting the floors in, dividing the rooms up.

It was a black canvas, you could do with it whatever you want.

Built in 1865, this Gothic building was attached to the nearby convent.

It was used as an orphanage until it closed its doors in 1977

and has laid empty ever since.

The Keyes paid £160,000 for the church

and had the same amount again for renovations.

But a build that was supposed to take six months ran behind schedule,

and ended up taking 11 months to complete.

You expect to see progress every time you come

and it can get you down, it can be disappointing.

There are times when you just think, "What am I doing this for?"

You know, "What have I let myself in for? We're nowhere near finished."

But there are also times where it makes massive strides.

The creative vision is all down to Tim and Lindsay.

They only called in an architect

once it was time to draw up the final plans.

The couple installed a second floor

to create a more intimate space upstairs,

but decided to leave the ground floor open

to show off the building's Gothic grandeur.

-It's difficult to get the balance between old and new.

-New.

We kept downstairs old more, didn't we?

And the upstairs a bit more up to date.

This is a fabulous place to live, fantastic place.

Earlier in the programme, I met first-time renovator Michael Hims

who, with the help of his mum, had bought an empty 1930s house.

He wanted to renovate the property all by himself,

stamping his own individual style on his new home.

To help Michael, I took him to see Wayne and Elaine Kelly

who'd bought a dated semi-detached house

and used their know-how to bring it back to its modern best.

Wayne and Elaine bought the three-bed semi

with a view to renovating it.

Built in 1938, the house had only ever had one owner before them.

The previous occupant had passed away

and the house was left empty for over two years

and was in serious need of renovation when they took it on.

It needed completely rewiring.

We knew it needed completely replastering.

We could see the potential for a kitchen extension on the back.

Wayne, a builder,

had tackled the majority of the work himself, just as Michael intended.

But even with Wayne's experience,

juggling their jobs alongside their own renovation was tough.

-Trying to work all day and then you have to come here at night.

-Yeah.

Work the weekends. It is very stressful.

And Wayne's professional experience had certainly helped the budget.

The benefits - the renovation with Wayne being a builder -

was just a massive help.

I would say that we've probably saved over £40,000 in labour charges

by renovating the house ourselves.

'Even though this project was on a bigger scale than Michael's,

'I'd hoped that he and Fiona

'would be able to glean some useful advice from his visit.'

Guys, this is lovely.

So, you have a bit of experience in doing this kind of renovation.

-Is that fair?

-Yeah.

I am in the building trade and this is our third renovation.

How much of the work does that mean you can do yourself

when you take on a project like this?

-We could probably do about 90% of the work ourselves.

-Right.

Mike's been incredibly brave and done everything himself.

Brave or stupid, it's one of the two!

Yeah, brave/stupid, we'll weigh it up!

In a place like this, you look at the walls

and you almost take it for granted how straight and smooth

everything is, but how important is it to get that exactly write?

I think it's very important because when you apply the paint,

if the finish isn't just right, any lights

will show up any imperfections

on the walls, so it does pay to have a professional do the job for you.

It's a similar sized house,

what does it cost to get a plasterer in for a house like this?

OK, this size of house, if Mike was boarding it himself,

-I would say approximately £1,500.

-That's nothing too shocking.

-I could still afford it if I had to.

-Yeah. "If you HAD to."

You're still contemplating giving it a go.

I'm giving everything else a go, so it makes sense for me

to see it all the way through, as it were.

-If the quality's not up to scratch, then I'll happily get someone else in to do it.

-Yeah.

'I was keen for Michael and Fiona to see more

'and to talk further about the reality of renovation budgets.'

-So here we are. This is the master bedroom?

-Yes, that's right.

I know it took you about 18 months to do the renovation in total.

What did you THINK it was going to cost you,

and then what did it ACTUALLY cost you?

-Well, we thought it would cost about £30,000...

-Right.

..to completely renovate the house.

But it probably cost more like £40,000.

It was mainly the fixtures and fittings.

How do you feel about money, listening to that?

So far, because I'm still on budget,

I guess I'm not that yet concerned that I'm going to be over.

Yeah, but if we break it down, you've got £3,000 left.

Ha! Yeah.

-And at least half of that's going to a plasterer.

-Potentially!

-Potentially!

-Yeah.

-So there's going to be a bit of a squeeze. You don't have to be...

-We'll see what it comes to. If it goes over, it goes over.

-Yeah.

'Later in the programme, we'll catch up with Michael to see

'if he did tackle every task on his build and if his budget stretched.'

The UK is facing a housing crisis and for every two families

that need a place to live, there's a property lying empty.

There are nearly a million vacant homes across the UK

and almost 300,000 of these have been abandoned

for six months or more.

Some empty properties stand alone, they're complete one-offs,

while in other cases, whole areas have fallen into decline leaving

large numbers of derelict dwellings.

In these situations, it's really difficult for individuals

or developers to really make a difference

and that's why the Government have created a scheme to help

turn around these abandoned streets.

'Last year, we learned that the Government were going to

'allocate funding of £50 million to bring clusters of empty homes

'back into use.

'I met up with David Ireland from the Empty Homes Agency to see what sort

'of impact he thought this project would have on our housing problem.'

How does this fund differ from funds that have previously

been made available by the Government?

This is about groups of empty properties so whereas previous funds

are about getting individual properties back into use

and getting them into affordable housing, this is about dealing

with whole blocks of empty properties like the ones we've got behind us.

There'd be little point in doing just one of those houses,

because who'd want to live in amongst all that dereliction?

What you need to do is deal with all of them at once.

And that costs a lot of money

and that's why there is a need for a fund.

So, this really could make a huge difference to whole neighbourhoods?

There are areas of the country where there are huge amounts of empty

properties and before, it's been very difficult to bring all those back into use at once

so I think this will help in bringing probably a fairly small number of

neighbourhoods but bringing...doing a lot of good in that small number.

Today, less than one year later, Stoke-on-Trent have been

awarded £1.5 million from the cluster fund which has been

matched by the council to regenerate the depressed area.

Over the last decade, the Cobridge area of Stoke has become

blighted with abandoned properties

and there's real concern for the future of the community here.

David Ireland is encouraged by the innovative way

that Stoke Council intends to use their awarded fund.

The scheme here is what's called homesteading,

the council will sell these properties for £1,

which sounds like a fantastic bargain, but what it does mean

is that people will need to do the properties up themselves

and they'll get a loan from the council to enable them to do so.

The new owners will be able to borrow up to

£30,000 at a reduced interest rate to spend on renovating their homes

and it's hoped this incentive will draw people back to these streets.

The cluster fund is going to pay for the loans which enable people

to bring these properties back into use so it's actually

the cluster funds which made this scheme possible

in the way that it's being done.

The thinking here has been that nobody wants to live in these areas.

And I think that thinking was wrong.

What the truth was is that nobody could afford to

live in here at the prices that were being asked.

By changing the prices

and making it very, very affordable,

you actually find there's a lot of demand

and the interest which has already been shown

in these has been absolutely enormous.

That's very encouraging because it shows lots of people

want to come here and get these houses back into use

and that's got to be a very, very good thing for the future.

The council have already had success with a similar scheme less

than a mile away in Middleport.

The houses that we saw in Cobridge are exactly the same structure

as these and in fact, a year or so ago,

these ones looked exactly the same.

So, this proves what can be done and what can happen.

And hopefully in a few months' time,

we'll see the streets in Cobridge looking the same as this.

When I first met novice DIY renovator, Michael,

he'd bought a three-bedroom house in Birmingham.

I'm looking to do an integrated audiovisual system, make

the house react towards what you're doing and what your daily routine is, as it were.

Although he'd just started his renovation,

he'd already spent 12,000 of his £15,000 budget.

I'm back in Birmingham to catch up with Mike.

This isn't a property that was ever going to change

hugely from the outside and, to be honest, it hasn't, really.

But I'm very intrigued to see inside

to find out how he's been getting on.

'Michael had planned to turn this standard 1930s semi-detached

'house into a hi-tech bachelor pad.'

Hey, Mike, how are you doing?

Can I come and have a look?

'And with his mum acting as a financial guarantor, it was

'in everybody's interest to complete the renovation on schedule.'

This has definitely come on. Some big changes here.

Last time, they were joists all exposed, you'd stripped

everything back and you say you put lots of cables through.

-So, is your vision of a hi-tech home still on course?

-Yes, definitely.

-The screen's still in, it's still staying where it is.

-Good.

And everything's still going to plan.

We talked a lot about plastering,

whether you were going to do it yourself. What happened, did you get someone in?

Yeah, I had one in. His handiwork is what you see today, really.

It's a lot better now than what was before

and I'm much happier with it.

'Clearly, the house still has a long way to go

'but when you're doing the majority of the work yourself

'and you're on a tight budget, it's an uphill struggle.'

So you're fitting in your job, uni and working on the house.

What time are you getting up every day?

I get up at four o'clock in the morning now.

If you have time, you come back to the house?

Yeah, and obviously got weekends as well,

I do it between work and house as well.

But it's still going ahead, albeit a bit slower than it was before.

That shows just how dedicated you have to be.

That's really impressive.

'And this ambitious project hasn't been helped by an opportunist

'who took a shine to Michael's lead roof.'

The bay window at the front, that was a lead roof, that got pinched.

-Somebody actually nicked your roof?!

-I had to put a new fibreglass roof on there,

and that has to comply with regulations as well.

Because it was completely exposed. It wasn't watertight.

-Oh, God. You can't plan for that, can you?

-No.

'Against the odds, this 22-year-old has managed to do almost

'everything himself, including the electrics and the plumbing.

'And his masterplan of creating a hi-tech digital house

'is still on course.'

Is this a plan of what you'll be doing?

Yeah, here it is. You can see the television in the middle

and then the alcove either side with a large bench thing

-you can see behind me.

-That's already in, OK.

And then the idea is the speakers pop out of there

-for the home cinema system.

-The speakers pop out?

-Yeah.

So, you press a button and the speakers rise up out of that unit?

The screen comes down from the ceiling

and the speakers then come up as well so then everything

changes from a normal living room to an absolute home cinema.

To a home cinema. I like the vision. What do you make of that, Fiona?

-This is good, isn't it?

-It's fantastic.

We've been looking at this for quite a few times over the last few months

-and I'm very proud of him. Looks great.

-Yeah.

-Really good.

'Upstairs, Michael is justifiably proud of the bathroom he's

'created single-handedly, and the other rooms are taking shape too.'

Well, this is looking good. This is very nearly finished.

Yeah, this room's virtually all my own handiwork.

These tiles can be pretty tricky because you get them

slightly out, you really notice it. How have you found it?

Yeah, cos I put the walls in as well,

I had to make sure the walls were perfectly square.

It was a challenge at first, getting the hang of it,

-but it's gone quite well overall. Quite happy with it.

-Yeah.

You've done some of the plumbing as well?

All the plumbing, I've done myself.

It must be a tremendous satisfaction thinking, "I've built this room."

-That must feel great.

-Yeah, there definitely is.

Fiona, last time, you did happen to mention on camera that you would...

or you EXPECTED Mike might move out by June 2012.

Did that happen?

He did move out when he said

-and now he's moved back in!

-But it sounds like you're close to finally...

-We're close to him moving out permanently.

-Yeah.

So I think we're saying, what, a couple of weeks?

-Yeah, couple of weeks.

-Couple of weeks.

-We've said it on camera!

-So it must happen.

-Would that be a good thing? Bit more space?

-Bit more space, definitely, yes.

-Very good.

-So, yes, that'll all work out, hopefully.

Well, I'm incredibly impressed with everything you've done. Fitting so much in.

It doesn't seem like you're that far off.

-So, impressive, good luck with it.

-Thank you.

-Hope you get there very soon.

-Cheers.

I'm impressed with everything Michael's done.

OK, he hasn't been able to keep up with the pace of that early progress

but even so, things are definitely happening

and also what I really like is he stuck to his ideals,

that he really wanted this hi-tech home.

Reality hasn't weighed in, hasn't changed any of that,

that's exactly what he's going to have.

And isn't he going to have a swish gadget pad? All the best to him.

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