Episode 53 Homes Under the Hammer

In a difficult property market,

it's harder to make a short-term profit out of property.

But if you're careful, and you buy at the right price and in the right location, you can still make money.

But now more than ever is when you need some good advice,

which is why we're here on Homes Under The Hammer.

No matter how experienced you are, you can still come a cropper when you're buying property.

You've got to make sure you do your research and you can afford to make a few mistakes along the way.

So were today's buyers well prepared or did the properties throw up a few unexpected problems?

Development of this former chapel near Tunbridge Wells is in the hands of the local authority.

Until they say yes, your plans are scuppered.

Plans could be crucial to making the most of this three-bedroom house in north London.

This one requires vision, and lots of it.

And in Derby, this two-bedroomed bungalow has some serious issues.

Look at the ceiling.

All these properties have been sold at auction

and we'll find out who bought them and what they paid for them when they went under the hammer.

Royal Tunbridge Wells, just 30 miles south of London, is surrounded by glorious Kent countryside.

With boutique shops and cobbled streets, the town is rightly proud of its Georgian heritage.

You can't move for period properties here.

Just a couple of miles away from all that regal splendour

brings you to Southborough, where up for auction was a detached property with a difference.

Guide price, 90 to £100,000, how do you fancy your very own chapel?

Built in 1882, this building is certainly impressive.

The huge wooden doors and three imposing windows certainly make for an eye-catching first impression.

Great anticipation going into places like this, because you never know what you're going to find.

But actually, not bad.

Big space. One big room, as you might have imagined.

It's not the most inspiring, but it's big.

High ceilings, lots of light coming in from the windows. This is interesting.

Normally in these kind of auction lots, things like the

pews here would have been taken out, because these are worth a lot of money, probably £1,500 each.

They would have gone but whoever buys these get those as well.

Big, big plus point.

Yeah, it's not a bad start.

At the rear here, you've got another main room and off it, some smaller rooms.

There's a kitchen, toilets, ladies' toilets out the back and then some more rooms above.

So a lot of space to play with but the biggest issue you're going to

have with this place is the fact that

it has currently planning permission to be exactly what it is, a chapel.

If you want to convert this into anything else, you're going to have

to apply to the local authorities and they may not grant that.

You may want to convert the house of your dreams, you may want to put a shop in here,

but until they say yes, your plans are scuppered.

# You saw me crying in the chapel. #

It could all end in tears, but upstairs there's even more accommodation.

You could make a fabulous feature of all that wood panelling.

But downstairs is the main point of interest.

Bearing in mind this was an old Baptist chapel, there is one amazing original feature still intact.

And it's under here.

It's the old baptism pool.

How about this? You can imagine the congregation coming in here, being baptised or whatever.

Now, in terms of what you would use it for,

I have absolutely no idea.

I invited a local estate agent

to have a look at this celestial building.

Heaven knows what he'll make of it.

This particular property has enormous potential.

It could be changed into many things, businesses, residential,

could be flats, apartments,

studios, or it could be a dance hall perhaps or any other business facility.

All dependent on planning, of course.

So how would that work out for the new owner?

From what people have told me, getting planning permission for smaller units is quite often welcomed

with open arms, however larger developments, luxury apartments can be more of a challenge.

Change of use on a property like this could be especially difficult.

Let's talk figures. Remember, this place was guided at 90 to £100,000.

If the new owner was able to turn it into the residential property, how much could it make?

Residential value when it was finished could be anything.

If it's just one single dwelling, one house, it could be something in the region of 300, 325.

We generally value properties on comparable evidence and there is

nothing comparable to this, it's so unusual.

Well, what an interesting project.

Is it something you'd like to take on?

Well, if you do, don't underestimate the amount of time

and effort it's going to take, not least when it comes to getting that planning permission.

Remember, in order to convert this, you are going to have to get change of use

and with the local council round here really favouring smaller units, that might not be easy.

Who, though, was willing to take the challenge on when it went under the hammer?

Lot six we go to now, a vacant chapel

with potential for conversion, as it's all said there.

Loads of interest in it. Can we start at £100,000?

£100,000? 100. I'm on the way.

105, 110, 115, 120, and five. And 30. And five, and 40.

Five, 50, five.

55. 60? Come on.

You want it? No? 155, madam. 160 anywhere, do I see?

160 at the back, 165, 170.

170. And two. 72 I have. And five.

And seven. 177. 180. And two.

82 and five. And seven.

190 and two. And five, and seven.

200 and two, and five and seven.

207, 210. 210, 212.

212. And 15, and 17. Thank you, 220.

And two, 222.

222. No? At £220,000, I have...

222. 225, 227, 227 at the back.

230. 232. 232. Five?

235. And seven. 237. 240.

240. 242. And five?

245. And seven? 247. 250.

252.

255. 257, 257 I've got.

260. 262? 262 I've got.

Another three. Can I say 265?

265. Can I say 270?

270? 270 I'm bid.

275? 275. 280?

280? At 275, I have then.

I will sell for the first time, 275 for the second time.

Third and final time, if you're sure you're all done.

At £275,000, yours at 275. Well done, both of you, thank you for the underbidder.

Wow, there was a lot of interest in this lot.

That £275,000 winning bid was £180,000 over the guide price.

It was made by Cleo, who seems to have been

determined to get it, because she was bidding right from the start.

I met her and her husband, Michael, back at the chapel to congratulate them on their purchase.

-Michael, Cleo, lovely to meet you both.

-Nice to see you, yes.

-Lovely to meet you.

-Congratulations.

-Thank you.

So why did you want to buy this?

Well, I was going to buy a church in Hawkhurst, the All Saints Church, enormous.

The whole street it took up and I love it dearly.

And it was a bit big. Now my hip's gone, my knee's gone, my leg's gone,

and Michael came here last week, saw the chapel, went and bought it and said, "That's your lot."

-Really?

-Yes.

-Straight in there, straight out.

-Sometimes one has to exercise a sense of judgment,

and although this was a magnificent building, it was a Grade 2 listed building,

it was going to be a nightmare.

We were incredibly lucky, because we were staying with a friend of ours,

cos we live in Italy and we come over

periodically to England, and she knows that Cleo loves churches.

She said "What do you think I've just seen? There's this chapel for sale."

So Cleo had her eyes on a church

and she has ended up with a chapel in her home town of Tunbridge Wells.

She plans to convert it into a residential property.

-So tell me a bit more about you two, because you strike me as marginally eccentric.

-We are.

Cleo was a Rank starlet.

-No!

-In the old, old days, you know when the studios used to have contract players?

-Yes.

-Cleo was one of the Rank girls.

-Alongside who at that time?

-Joan Collins, for example.

-They were both there at the same time.

-Name some of the movies then.

The Case of the Disappearing Gainsborough.

But it doesn't matter now, cos they were so old.

Modest Cleo may not want to dwell on it now, but she was indeed a starlet

and rubbed shoulders with the glitterati of the day.

Over the years, she's bought 50 properties

as well as dealing in antiques, both in England and in Italy.

She's an art adviser for Sotheby's and Christie's and is clearly an auction natural.

Go through in a bit more detail exactly what you're going to do to the place.

We're going to open it up.

We're going to open up the wall so you can see from the back, right the way through.

Seductive, voluptuous, luxurious,

-scarlet, gold, swags...

-I'll bring all my beautiful stuff.

I do the theatre costumes sometimes and I've got all the wonderful things. So it'll all be in here.

-And the main room then, what are you going to do with that?

-It'll be kitchen,

-dining, living.

-And a big table for everyone to eat on.

-So you're going to have lots of wild parties?

Yeah, with all their walking sticks and things, it doesn't matter.

THEY LAUGH

Well, Michael is 70 and Cleo, 74.

Although they've been together for 28 years, they finally tied the knot just three years ago.

But it's not only Cleo who's enjoyed the high life. Back in the Sixties,

Michael helped run a famous London venue.

I was fortunate enough to meet someone who was opening a club

-in London in 1967, called the Speakeasy.

-The Speakeasy in London?

-The Speakeasy.

It was the big music club of the time, you know, when people who came through were all the

cognoscenti and the managers and the writers and the artists.

-So who did you meet in that time?

-Oh, everybody.

Jimi Hendrix was one of my personal, very good friends.

It seems fitting that a couple with such an extraordinary past would buy

an extraordinary property to enjoy their far from ordinary life.

Michael and Cleo plan to take around six months and spend no more than £50,000 doing this up.

But, given the planning problems they could run into, I have my doubts.

So is there anything else that could see them ending up in deep water?

Let's talk about what you're going to do in this room, cos this is obviously key.

First of all, what on earth are you going to do with this?

Well, this was a surprise.

And once we had thought about it, we realised what an advantage this could be.

So what I intend to do with it, because it is quite clearly a

-distinctive feature, is to use this and have a fountain in it.

-Right.

-Put trees in it and plants.

-Real trees?

Real trees. Absolutely, big trees.

And a little fountain that comes up like that.

So it'll become not only a design feature, but a natural feature.

It'll give you some sort of sense of the outside inside.

And what about the windows?

-Well, if we go through to the front here, I'm going to take this whole front down.

-Right.

Put a vestibule in where the front door is because you need that for drafts and also for hanging coats.

We are going to make a minstrels' gallery and I think what

we are going to try to do, is to use some stained glass in those front windows.

-That will be wonderful, yes.

-To give you this beautiful light.

It sounds like an incredible project.

Good luck with it all and I really can't wait to see what you do.

Thank you very much and thank you for coming over.

-It's been a pleasure.

-It's been delightful to talk with you.

Well, what a fantastic story this has turned out to be.

Michael and Cleo, clearly amazing characters.

And a lot of plans for this chapel. Boy, oh, boy.

Still ahead of them though, will they get to that planning permission

they need to turn this into the palace of fun they hope it will be?

You can find out later in the show.

Transport links are the priority for many people and today, I'm in Northwood, Middlesex.

That's just 20 minutes from Euston station, with a direct link to Gatwick Airport.

The lot I'm here to see is on North Approach, which is part of the Moor Park Conservation Area.

So hopefully I'll find something with plenty of character.

Some of the houses along this road are big.

They're seriously grand.

And I've just found out that a house along here has sold for £1.2 million.

That doesn't surprise me.

So when you hear of a property being guided at £450,000 along here, it makes you sit up and take notice.

Now, unfortunately, the facade isn't so inspiring,

but location is key for this buy, so let's have a look around.

OK, maybe I'm being a bit harsh, but I reckon it's going to need

a serious makeover before I can shower it with any compliments.

I hope the shabbiness is only skin-deep.

Unfortunately, the inside of this property is very similar

to the nondescript frontage.

This is the lounge and there's just not much going on in here for me at all.

This one requires vision and lots of it.

So onwards and hopefully upwards.

But, before you do that, a look around the ground floor reveals

a functional but dated kitchen and utility area crying out for some serious work to be done to it.

But the second reception room should lift the spirits a little.

If you could remove the dividing wall into the kitchen,

you could create one huge space and have bi-folding glass doors leading on to the garden.

But upstairs, options are rather more limited.

There's a standard size bathroom and good-sized bedrooms, but they're all, well, pretty average.

Plastic windows are practical and maintenance-free,

but I would like to see some box sashes installed here.

Expensive yes, but when you're surrounded by

million-pound properties, it's a cost I think is justified.

This house lacks character and I'd like to see some injected into it.

Windows and a new front door would give his property a much-needed facelift.

Remember, you'd need to consult the Conservation Area Partnership for any changes.

Everything is subject to them saying yes, but I'm still looking for something to get excited about.

And finally, I found it!

# Hallelujah Hallelujah

# Hallelujah Hallelujah... #

This good-sized garden give you an option of extending the house

without losing any outside space, so that's a big plus.

The property was guided at £450,000, so I asked a local estate agent

what he thought of its possibilities.

There are three options, potentially.

There is a basic makeover which would entail carpets, curtains,

refitting the kitchen, refitting the bathroom and smartening up the utility area, rear lobby.

That would be the basic one.

You could consider extending the house.

You would have to comply with Moor Park 1958 Ltd

in addition to planning, which is the local rules and regulations.

The alternative would be to demolish the house and puts a new house in its place.

But, whatever changes you make surely it's going to be for the better.

So, at around that £475,000 guide price, how do the figures stack up?

Kept as is, without extending it but modernised to a reasonable standard,

I would imagine it would be worth about £650,000.

If it was extended and enlarged to include a loft space,

a conservatory and expanding the ground floor,

then I would estimate the value as an asking price up to about £900,000.

An uninspiring property in an inspiring location.

Whoever takes this on can only do one thing and that's add value. Let's go to auction.

Lot 29, 24 North Approach, Moor Park.

Over to you, where the you wish to start?

Down here. 450, 455 anywhere?

455, 460, 465, 470, 470, 475.

480, 485, 490, 495.

500, smart bid. 500 down here.

New spot, 505, 510, 515, 520.

525, 530, 535, 540.

545, 550, 555, 560.

565, 570, 575, 576.

577, 578. 579, 580,

581, 582, 583,

584, 585.

584 down here. 585 here?

If not, 584 first time, second time, third and last time, all done.

Sold for 584, well bid.

The winners of that lot which went 134,000 over the guide price

were Italian-born Lina and her partner, Mike.

I met Lina at the house to hear about her plans.

Lina, this house sticks out on the street like a sore thumb.

-It does doesn't it.

-It's a bit of an ugly duckling at the moment.

It's very ugly, but it's going to be beautiful.

How did you feel about bidding for this on auction day?

It was nerve wracking.

This was really, secretly, my first choice.

But Mike, my partner, wanted to go for a flat.

So we set a limit and the flat went in no time,

so the next one was this one, so I couldn't believe it.

I was really, really nervous and it stopped at 584 and we got the house.

I couldn't move, I could not move, I was frozen.

That was it, it was very exciting, it took a while

before I could actually speak when we went into the room to sign.

Originally from Italy, Lina has been living in England for 36 years.

She now has a flourishing business as an interior designer

which is exactly the sort of owner this place needs.

I know just by looking at property, I know more or less how much

you can spend to take it to the level I would like to.

So, we aim to spend about 150,000

and we are going to develop into five bedrooms,

three bathrooms, a very big kitchen, conservatory across the back.

So, it's going to be a lovely, lovely property.

All in all, you will probably have spent around 850,000 on it?

Yes, the maximum. Yeah, yeah.

Would it not be cheaper to knock it down and build something new here?

Not really, no, because it's in fairly good condition,

so it's cheaper to do the extension from the side.

Because we're not going to extend from the back, it's just from the side

and we'll just square the house and go to the loft.

So, really, it's much cheaper doing it this way.

Lina is not one to let the grass grow under her feet,

she's already applied for planning permission for that extension and loft conversion.

She's also spotted a way to increase the plot size.

She is hoping to buy two garages from the next door neighbour

and that would allow her to push her boundary over the drive

to create a lovely front garden and increase that value.

I'm going to be nosy here, how much would you hope to market this property for, once you have done it?

I'm hoping to market it for £1.1 million.

1.1, so you will be joining the millionaire set along this road?

Hopefully.

Lina seems driven and has an eye for style so that begs the question, why this property?

I just have a passion to refurbish properties.

The worst condition they are, the more excited I get.

-Really? It doesn't put you off?

-Not at all.

It's really hard to keep the vision, you see something and then it takes you a year, perhaps, to get there.

How do you deal with that?

It's very exciting, it's very exciting because also you get ideas as you go along.

For example, the partition comes up and you think, it doesn't look good

although the plan says this is how it is going to be.

When it is up and it doesn't look good, my builders know that they

will have to knock it down, they will think, here she comes again.

Lina knows what she wants and would love to see the project completed in seven to eight months.

I was dying to hear about her plans, so for that we headed to the kitchen.

I think the kitchen is going to be quite impressive

because the chimney over there is going to stand on its own.

We are going to knock the walls on either side.

We going to do a double oven there.

So the kitchen is going to back on to this wonderful glass conservatory?

-And have you designed this?

-Yes.

It's going to be quite an amazing space. And this is how you see the house looking once finished?

What are your ideas for the internal look, you have lots of lovely paint colours here?

It is going to be fairly neutral

and then you can accessorise them with cushions, chairs with strong colours and so on.

So you can really let your Italian passion run riot,

you can go mad for all those beautiful leather chairs.

Good luck with his project, it's been lovely meeting you.

It's been my pleasure.

Will Lina be able to take this standard three-bed house and turn it into a million-pound property?

With her interior design credentials, she just might.

Join me later in the show to see how she gets on.

Coming up, there's trouble afoot at this two-bedroom bungalow in Derby.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Serious problems in the front bedroom, here.

There's a change of plan for Lina's house in North London.

We did our sums and we realised that it wasn't worth doing the refurb.

-But first...

-Seductive, voluptuous, luxurious...

Has that old chapel lived up to Michael's promises?

Earlier, we saw this chapel in Southborough near Tunbridge Wells in Kent.

It was bought at auction by Cleo and her husband, Mike, for £275,000.

This was to be a new base for them in England when not travelling around the world.

With a history of restoring 50 properties to their names, renovating these huge rooms

shouldn't have been a baptism of fire.

Well, seven and a half months on and whilst there may be no signs of the stained glass

that Michael promised, the refurbished door and colourful window-boxes

do suggest that something heavenly may be waiting inside.

Sure enough, Michael and Cleo have brought a real sense of splendour back to this chapel.

They've even found a use for some of the old pews into the bargain.

For this colourful couple, the chapel was the perfect canvas.

To Cleo and I, the advantage was it was a big room with high ceilings,

and there was plenty of room to express ourselves, not just

in terms of small bits and pieces but in terms of a rather larger sense of creating a whole feeling of a place.

Michael had big plans for the old baptism pool.

We thought to ourselves, "Well, this is marvellous.

"We'll have a water feature, perhaps.

"A fountain or something rather grand like that."

But on closer examination, this became really impractical to do this.

But at the same time, we always wanted to have lots of plants

and trees around, and so we built a false floor here.

This pot here I bought for my mother for one of her birthdays a few years back,

so we thought we'd make that a centrepiece and put the other plants around it,

so we have this sort of inside-outside feel to it.

And what is really very encouraging is that the plants are growing

fantastically, and so all in all, we're really very happy.

Well, if you've got the space, why not create a garden inside?

But while the ground floor main hall has classic style, upstairs there's a rather different theme.

It couldn't get any more different from that more traditional style downstairs.

This is the perfect example of the broad range of tastes that Cleo and Mike have.

Cleo is the driving force here.

She has the most extraordinary eye.

And it's not trained.

It's an instinctive thing, an intuitive thing.

And she's always looking for stuff.

I mean, it drives me, sometimes, crazy.

I get a lot of my stuff from demolition.

I used to do, years ago, demolition.

One friend is in Tunbridge Wells. The other one's in Italy.

And they call me up and say, "I've got so and so.

"Do you want it, Cleo?" Wonderful.

With a life spent living and travelling around the world,

it's no wonder their design style is an eclectic mix of... well, everything.

And don't expect that kitchen to be any different.

Well, when we started planning the kitchen...

I know that Cleo does not like to spend money unnecessarily.

We like to re-use things.

However, I absolutely insisted that we have a new stove, because we both love cooking.

So that's our new stuff, and very nice it is, too.

As far as the cabinets go...

The two cabinets... These came from my son's, my son's house.

Two cabinets here were cut off from two dressers,

and I wanted them like this because I wanted them against the wall,

with the paper behind it.

Because we thought it would give a more dramatic effect.

The lovely floor comes from Italy.

As for the rest of it, we have all the space

that we always wanted to have.

Plenty of room to cook, to talk, to eat...have a good time.

Cleo and Michael enlisted the help of a friend, a Russian builder

who lives in their Italian castle, to come over and do the work here.

With no structural changes, I reckon the couple have utilised the space here well.

But at what cost?

With a new kitchen, bathroom and gallery installed,

plus total redecoration inside and out,

did Cleo and Michael's original 50 grand budget hold up?

I think, possibly, we've spent something in the region of about £25,000.

Which I think is pretty low.

Add that to their purchase price of £275,000 and Cleo and Michael

have spent 300 grand creating this unique, character property.

But more importantly for them, it's a new home.

We have said to each other that we feel very much at home here.

It is near Tunbridge Wells and I came from Tunbridge Wells.

All my biggest friends are from Tunbridge Wells,

so it's very sentimental for me this place.

This has been, I won't say the most successful thing that we have done, it's jolly close to it.

It's going to be something that we'll grow into,

the more we use it the more we'll enjoy it.

It doesn't sound as though Cleo and Michael

would want to part with this place

but they admit to having a wander lust.

They spent £300,000 in total, so what could they get if they decide to put it on the market?

What will have two local estate agents make of their creation?

It's a fantastic property. Amazing.

It's very quirky.

It's been done in their own taste

which isn't to everyone's taste but it is what it is.

A fun palace, it's fantastic.

Personally I think it's individual. Special.

Probably an acquired taste for most but amazing compared to what it was.

Marketing a property like this, we could put it on the market for

£300-325,000.

I would put this on the market for £300-310,000.

That could give the creative pair a possible pre-tax profit of £25,000.

That certainly is as much, if not more than we thought.

I thought, frankly, that if we got out, if it was on the market,

for what be paid for it and what we spent on it if we got out even it would be pretty good.

So that's not bad.

Should the lure of Italy

ever outweigh the charms of Tunbridge Wells

they could get a possible rental return of £1,200 per calendar month for the chapel.

But for now, Cleo and Mike say they are happy to spend some time in their new home.

And I don't blame them.

Think of Madison Avenue and you imagine skyscrapers, yellow cabs, upmarket boutiques.

That is Madison Avenue in New York but this is Madison Avenue just outside Derby.

The good news, though, property prices are a bit cheaper.

This two-bedroom bungalow, guided at 48,000 quid.

Derby's not quite the Big Apple, more a bad traditional English cox's pippin.

And it's less loft apartments, more suburban semis.

Seven out of 10 houses here are semis,

so many that will make this little bungalow a desirable commodity.

There is room for off-street parking but the kerb would need to be dropped.

I don't have the key to the front door today so I'm going in at the back,

past a plastic sheet covering a hole in the roof.

Not encouraging.

Interesting garden. I'll come back to that later.

Straight into this kind of lean-to, which is clearly an absolute disaster,

the roof's all over the place.

Somebody has obviously let this out as a kitchen though. Good heavens. Not good at all.

I think, is going to have to be knocked down.

You want to reinstate the kitchen where it was, which I think was this room here.

It makes much better sense.

It means a lot of work, not least this window here needs to be raised up.

So we can get a long run of units.

Total refurbishment.

Judging by the state of the ceiling, I think there is quite a lot of work to do in this place.

The grime and dirt in here can easily be sorted out with some elbow grease.

It is the bowed ceiling and general decay that I am worried about.

Sadly, it does not get any better as you delve deeper into the bungalow.

It gets worse. We've got a bathroom or toilet there that needs sorting out.

Two decent sized double bedrooms.

One there, and one there.

Then through into the living room, where, boy oh boy, do we have some problems?

Look at the ceiling. Absolutely shot.

That could be explained by the big hole there is in the roof.

That explains that it but not this bit.

Look, all the plaster has come down there as well.

There is bits of wood.

You're going to have to take all of this down.

First of all though, you are going to have to sort out the roof. Either way you're looking at a big job.

It's bizarre. I'm not sure why the ceilings have been so damaged but it is not confined to the living room.

That front bedroom also has a large damage spot and don't just look up because...

Serious problems in the front bedroom here.

That is...well, you can see, the floorboards are completely and utterly rotten.

That is not caused by what is coming down, that is damp coming in.

The path outside is higher than the level of the damp proof course, that's led to water coming in.

It has rotted the floorboards and rotted the joists. Either way, that is nasty.

And expensive so the inside is shot to pieces.

Let's see if outside can offer any hope.

These flagstones really are quite extraordinary.

The garden itself is actually a good size, which is great.

You can think about extending the property which is something that I would want to do.

Not least to get rid of this horrible thing on the back here. Put a proper extension on.

Unfortunately, it is not quite as easy as that because there's a covenant written into the property,

and you only see it when you read the legal pack

and it says they you have to ask permission from the landowner before you do any extension.

This was written in 1926,

probably related to when this was probably owned by a huge great mansion somewhere.

But it is still there. You can take out insurance policies to cover you

in case you get any comeback as a result of building. And it looks like other properties have done it.

I reckon it is more of a hiccup than a crisis.

But it is just another thing to add up to a list of negatives about this bungalow.

Any more and I don't think I'd be keen on buying it.

You may have a ready made chessboard out here,

but I reckon with all those holes in the roof, you'd be more likely to be playing drafts.

For my opening move,

I invited along the auctioneer who sold the property.

I started off by asking him about the Covenant on the land.

Very often, properties brought in 1920s or 30s had these fairly peculiar covenants attached to them.

If you can trace the land opener in 1926, you are doing very well.

But just in case, you should take out that insurance policy.

What about the bungalow itself?

First thoughts are obviously, very run down and needs a lot of work doing to it.

It is not going to be for the faint hearted.

It has attracted a lot of interest because this is the sort of property that people like to buy.

I can see the attraction of starting on a blank canvas for a total renovation,

but with the amount of work needed and that guide price of 48,000, would the figures stack up?

My estimate is if you upgrade what is here,

its value will probably be around £100,000.

If you were to spend money on extending it, I don't think you would push that more than towards £120,000.

There are a number of properties in this area that are rented,

I see no reason why this shouldn't suit the rented market.

My estimate would be a rental of about £550 per calendar month.

Don't underestimate the effort it will take to sort this place out.

Big issues with damp, you have a roof that is all over the place.

It needs internally reconfiguring.

You can end up spending a lot of money if you are not careful.

It's certainly not a watertight investment.

Was 13, lucky for somebody? Let's find out what happened when it went to the auction.

Lot number one this morning is number 13 Madison Avenue in Chaddesden.

45 to start me. 45 is bid on the phone.

50,000, £50,000.

55 is bid, at 55. £60,000, 65 is bid,

65,000, 70,000, 71,

at 71 and two,

73, 74, 75, £75,000.

76 is bid.

At £76,000, 77.

At £77,000, I will take 500 elsewhere,

I'll accept 500, 77 1/2, 78, at 78,000.

500, 79,000, 500?

£79,000 then. Any higher elsewhere?

At 79,000, going once, going twice, third opportunity, all done at £79,000.

Sold at number 79,000, number 15.

It was father and son, Peter and Paul, who got this property at £31,000 over the guide price.

The pair have been in partnership together for 20 years,

running everything from a pub to an import business.

Their various projects haven't always met with great success.

But undeterred, they have taken on this whopper of a job.

I met them back at the bungalow to find out more.

-Peter, Paul, lovely to meet you both.

-Thank you.

-Congratulations.

Do you like chess or backgammon?

You have seen the slabs, then.

What on earth was somebody thinking there?

It wasn't us, honestly.

Apart from that, you've bought the house, why did you want to buy it?

I live round the corner and I thought, I could move into a bungalow.

Paul says, OK, if you want it, perhaps buy it for you,

perhaps sell it, it is handy, it is where I want to live.

So that was why have we went bungalow rather than what we have been looking at.

So from your side of it, what was the story?

Basically we are not doing anything at the moment.

We had a business that we have been running for a couple of years.

I've done nothing for about a year, getting a bit of weight on and doing no physical work.

So it's the B Plan diet.

-Yes, very much like that.

-For both of us, I'm afraid.

Your building plan diet, fantastic.

A unique reason to get into development.

The pair had money to invest and rather than hoping to sweat pennies out of savings accounts,

Paul's hoping to sweat some pounds off himself by working on a renovation.

But what about the price they paid?

Was this an armchair developers decision, or had they done their homework?

We were taken by the guide price when we first saw it, as to why it would be 48,000.

Which is why we got some information from a few builders who were interested in it.

They said to us, they thought we would have to spend about 28 to 30,

including quite a lot of labour on it.

They were saying their limit was going to be 62, 63.

What, they told you that beforehand?

We knew a few builders, yes.

It was just people that we knew and based on that, we looked at it ourselves and thought,

if we can get it finished how we wanted for 100,

we looked back and thought we would have to spend just over 20,000 on it.

For that 20 grand, Peter and Paul aim to do a top to bottom renovation

from sorting out the roof to fixing the damp problem.

They're also planning to put a conservatory on the back

and return the kitchen to its rightful position.

With so much to do here though, I hope that 20 grand budget doesn't go through the roof.

To help keep costs down, Peter and Paul and some of their family members

will do a lot of the work, but leave the more skilled jobs to the contractors.

'In terms of how much time you're going to spend on it,'

are you working on it full-time?

Yes, we haven't got anything else to do.

That's was one of the ideas of getting the place,

to give us something to do, something to work on, a project.

With all their energies devoted to the project, the pair hope to finish in four to five months.

That will hopefully give Peter some time to make his mind up about his new home.

One of the problems I've got and always had,

is I can't walk into this room and imagine it with all the sink laid out there,

the cooker there. I can't picture it somehow.

I keep looking at it and looking at the ceiling and I don't want to live here.

It is a lack of imagination on my part.

Once I see a room start to take shape, and light and a few of my things,

I think that will make a decision for me.

Good look with it and congratulations

and maybe we will see you living in here in a few months' time.

-Yes, indeed.

-We're looking forward to it.

Well, it is a heck of an expensive way to lose weight

and Peter and Paul have got to be very careful about how much they spend on this place,

especially if they contemplate the extension.

But it all comes down to, will Peter move in? And that is his decision.

It is a property game they are playing, will they win or will it be checkmate?

We will find out later in the show.

Whatever the economic climate, our buyers have budgets to stick to and work to do.

Did they go through it all with a breeze, or were there storms that had to be weathered?

Let's find out.

Earlier, we met Lina, an interior designer,

who bought this three-bedroomed detached house in Northwood, Middlesex with partner, Mike.

The price was 584,000, a lot of money for a tired, run down house.

But its location in the Moor Park Conservation Area,

meant a great renovation could break it into the million pound club.

Well, 15 months later and it's clear the house is still waiting for that big leap.

The only change is a rampantly untamed front garden, and a worrying sign on the front path.

Inside is no different.

The only evidence of any activity is the removal of some carpets.

We met up with Lina to find out why the renovation hasn't got started.

When we bought the house it was at the peak of the house boom.

By the time that we applied for planning permission,

the house market crash took place.

So we did our sums and we realised it was not worth it

doing the refurbishment.

For any developer, judging the right time to buy can be a risky business.

Lina and Mike have definitely felt the hard edge of the downturn.

But Lina's not one to dwell on their misfortune.

When we realise that the property might take a downturn

we were very disappointed.

It's just no point crying over spilt milk, as the English say.

Lina and Mike's original plans for a five-bedroom house

and a larger footprint were rejected.

But with the help of an architect who revised the design,

their second application was successful.

They still have hopes of carrying out renovation.

This is what we are gonna do.

A lovely conservatory across the house. Which is gonna look amazing.

The extension is going to be squared off with the outhouse.

We are going to take that extension right up

and we are going to create another bedroom there.

We are going to lose one bedroom

which we are going to create as a family bathroom.

The family loft is going to be a lovely large bedroom

with an en suite shower.

It is going to be a lovely family house.

Lina's new plans mean the budget is down from £150,000 to 130 grand.

For now, the couple have decided to cut their losses

and have put their house on the market for £585,000.

Even with planning permission and a lot of interest,

no-one has yet matched their asking price.

If the property fails to sell then we will do it up-definitely

and I am very positive that we will get a good price for it.

15 months of holding on to this expensive property with no return

must be a stretch for their finances.

Between the architect and the planning fees and, obviously,

the running costs of the property because we have taxes to pay,

I think overall it is costing us about £10,000.

That would push their spend on the property to £594,000.

That's a lot of money to have sitting around doing nothing

and for an interior designer like Lina

there is an even bigger frustration.

It bothers me more that I haven't been able to show off

my creative flair, actually, then the financial loss.

Absolutely. I would love to show off my talent and my work.

It is my passion.

With that current total of £594,000,

a new renovation budget of 130 grand

would take the costs to £724,000.

So We asked two local estate agents to tell us

what they thought of this three-bed in its current state.

I'm not surprised to see the property

still in the same state as it was last time.

Property prices have been falling.

A lot of developers have been concerned

and financially challenged during that period.

To see it today is not a particular surprise.

I think having a planning permission certainly adds the saleability.

I don't think it necessarily gives it is the intrinsic value.

It would simply, at the right price, make the property far

more attractive to people to take on and want to build the extension

to make it a large family house.

Remember, Lina has spent £594,000 on the house so far.

What could she make selling it with that planning permission?

Today we would recommend that the property

is put on the market at a price of £499,950.

I would put this house on the market for £525,000.

Obviously the first one is a bit low.

Very low, I would say.

But the second one is not too bad.

But it's not as good as I thought.

With a renovated house costing a possible £724,000,

both estate agents felt that at current market values

it could only fetch it up to 700 grand.

But if the house and garden were cleaned and tidied up,

maybe rental would be more appealing.

The mark of this property for rental purposes is between

1400 and £1,500 per calendar month.

I would anticipate this property would rent

in the region of 1200 per calendar month.

We haven't considered renting at all.

We haven't really thought about it, but it's not bad at all considering

the condition of the house. It's not too bad.

That may be the best option for Lina until the market picks up.

When it does, has this experience put her off the developing game?

In the future I'm hoping to carry on doing this business and I've got

my interior designer business going and it's doing very well,

so I will carry on.

Earlier, we met father and son team Peter and Paul,

who bought this two-bedroom bungalow in Chaddesden, Derby, for £79,000.

For Peter, the plan was that this might be his new home,

but for Paul, this was a way for him to get a new image.

I've done nothing for about a year.

Getting a bit of weight on, and doing no physical work.

So it's the B-plan diet?

Yes! It's very much like that.

Well, with the amount of work needed,

I could see this was one weight-loss plan that could succeed.

There was dirt, there was damp, and there were holes everywhere.

This was a renovation that could leave a big hole in Peter and Paul's pockets.

So, four months later we're back to see how they've done.

From the outside, there's been some improvement on the curb appeal.

Those new bay windows definitely help give some shape,

form and character to the outside, but just wait until you see inside.

That grimy living room has been transformed

into a light, airy space, with signs that this is now a home for Peter.

That tatty, run-down kitchen has been ripped out

and replaced by a shiny new utility area.

That means the new kitchen must be...back in its original place.

Well, this was a real nondescript room.

We came in one day, we'd got snow through the roof,

snow through the ceiling, snow on the floor.

So we had a lot to do in here.

Luckily, my daughter gave us all the kitchen units

because she didn't need them, so we needed new worktops,

new lights and we've transformed the kitchen from in there

into here and we've now got a kitchen-diner.

And the rest of the bungalow also has a new look.

The two bedrooms have had a complete makeover,

both now looking clean and fresh.

And a new shower suite has been installed,

so it looks like Peter's got himself a completely new home,

but getting there took both Peter and Paul more than they anticipated.

We found many, many problems.

Well, not problems - things that needed doing

that we hadn't really anticipated.

Basically, we did the whole of the roof.

We've taken every floor out.

We've taken all the walls bar one, haven't we, back to the basic brick.

But the renovation had to pick up speed when Peter sold his house

after only four days on the market.

As time was of the essence, the transformation from grubby bungalow

to modern home was easily done in the four to five month timescale.

But something else also underwent a big change.

It's not only has that has had a dramatic change.

We've done a reasonable amount out here.

We've taken out a lot of the tiles that were across this floor.

That's all gone from this side. This summerhouse has gone.

We've moved to that over to the other side now.

There were two, so I've got one which was free, so that's a bonus.

The shed's gone in.

The greenhouse has been renovated. We've moved down.

It's sloped the whole of this down now.

We've put steps in a lot of the way down.

Garden's dug.

All the fences have been done. The fence panels.

And the best part is my brother did most of it!

Well, brother David's hard work here

really has transformed this former wasteland.

And as for those last pieces of chequerboard flags,

they will provide the base for a planned conservatory.

Then Peter will be able to savour and enjoy the garden,

or so you'd think.

I could have done without any garden at all. I'd have halved the garden.

The garden was mainly David anyway and because he hasn't got much of

a garden at home, so the greenhouse will be David's.

The garden at the bottom will be David's.

I'll enjoy the fruits of his labour.

# Can you dig it? Oh yeah... #

Well, Peter may not be doing any digging, but perhaps Paul will.

Remember, he took the project on as a way of keeping busy

and maybe losing some weight. So, did it work?

Surprisingly enough, I've lost six kilos, which is amazing,

because the amount we've eaten here has actually been quite a lot, so...

I was surprised. So I've lost six kilos and two centimetres off here.

Six kilos in good old English money is just over 13lb,

and speaking of pounds, with the help of David,

Peter and Paul have so far come in just under

their £20,000 renovation budget.

That means the whole project will have set them back

just under £100,000, but how much will it be worth?

What do two local estate agents think of the guys' hard work?

Very interesting to come and see it again today,

because having seen it as it was, blank canvas really,

and now seeing it almost completed,

the transformation has been absolutely brilliant.

You wouldn't recognise it, would you?

First thing that struck me was that the roof's been replaced,

which makes it look nice and fresh.

Would have been nice to see that the drive had been,

but other than that it looks nice.

They spent a total of £100,000, so how much

could this father and son team get if they sold the bungalow?

I would expect you'd get about 120,000 at the end of the day.

I would to put the property on the market at 119,950.

That could net them a possible 20 grand pre-tax profit.

I expected 115 and 117,

-so it's higher than both of us thought, really, isn't it?

-Yeah.

If they ever decide to rent it out, they could expect a maximum of £525

per calendar month, so are the team interested in another development?

I've enjoyed this project a great deal.

I'd definitely move on and do another one.

Whether it's a long-term thing I very much doubt

because I do tend to change what I do every few years, but

I'd certainly do another one and possibly another.

Paul may still be weighing up the options,

but Peter has made his decision.

He finally moved into his new bungalow

just a few days after we filmed.

That's all for now.

We'll see you next time for more Homes Under The Hammer.

For more bids and buys from auction rooms

all around the country.

-We'll see you then.

-Goodbye.

-Goodbye.

For more information about Homes Under The Hammer,

including how the programme was made, visit the website at bbc.co.uk

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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