Episode 57 Homes Under the Hammer

Hello! Despite tough market conditions,

people still want a slice of the property action.

And if you're prepared to take the plunge,

auctions can be a great place to start.

Yes. It can be fraught, it can be fantastic.

But it's certainly worth giving it a go, buying your home under the hammer.

Some lots are very popular at auction.

Others go unsold.

So the auction room can be a difficult place to conquer.

Here are the properties that won the hearts of the buyers on today's show.

This cottage in Devon has plenty to get excited about.

Oh, boy, this doesn't disappoint. This winding staircase is absolutely charming.

I've got a plan for these two flats in Ilford.

It just needs a complete refurb. It needs some TLC. Put the love back!

In Openshaw, Manchester, just getting into this top floor flat

is the first challenge.

That's a first!

All of these properties sold at auction.

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

The name of this village is as quaint as it looks.

Ipplepen in Devon, near Newton Abbot,

just oozes history and a sense of permanence.

So I hope that the auction lot that went under the hammer

will be the cream of the crop.

The property I'm here to see is exactly what you'd hope to find

in a cute little Devon village like this.

It's a two-bedroomed, listed, character cottage

at a guide price of £79,000.

Now, I'm already really excited because I think there might be an incredible fireplace downstairs.

You know why? Look at that chimney!

It certainly has loads of chocolate box charm,

but how does it stack up on the inside?

Fingers crossed!

Wow!

Fantastic!

I think you'd probably call that an inglenook sort of.

Maybe not completely.

You've got these little bits on the side, probably where the bread oven went.

Somebody's put a wood burning stove in there, a very practical thing to do.

It means it can actually function as a fireplace.

But what a fantastic centrepiece for the room.

And the room itself, one big room downstairs is basically what you've got.

But I like that, because often a cottage like this

might feel quite cramped and claustrophobic.

But the fact you've got one big space makes it, I don't know, liveable in.

Lots of original beams, stuff like that.

Looking good so far.

Through to the kitchen.

And, well, it's cute!

A little bit more claustrophobic in here.

But so much character. These little windows, the reveals on the windows.

Obviously a few signs of damp here and there.

You'd expect that.

But as a starting point, this place does not disappoint. Oh, no.

At the rear of the property there's a funny lean-to porch

which is hardly in keeping with the cottage's Grade II listing,

but it's a different story upstairs.

Well, you'd hope for something with a bit of character when it came to the stairs

and oh, boy, this doesn't disappoint.

This winding staircase, absolutely charming.

I have to say...

Yeah, watch your head here and everywhere else.

It's a big strange. That's lots of false walls

which have been put in to separate out the rooms up here.

But it's just incredible when you come up to this first floor.

Ceiling bowed all over the place. Look at the thickness of the walls!

It is what it is, isn't it?

This amazing, old, higgledy-piggledy

charming kind of cottage.

It's very easy to get carried away

with what this place is,

but at some stage you are going to have to try and restore this,

and that will open up all sorts of problems.

Look at the way the ceiling here is all bowed.

When you take that down, it's probably going to create all sorts of issues.

Probably lath and plaster and because it's listed, it'll have to go back.

As it's Grade II listed everything that's done will have to be approved and done by a specialist.

It'll cost you a fortune.

Do you care? No.

No!

-#

-I don't care if the sun don't shine

-#

-I get my lovin' in the evening time

-#

-When I'm with my baby.

-#

Nope, I don't care that the tiny bathroom is dominated by an ugly water tank,

or that the bathroom also leads to a bedroom that would be too cramped for a Hobbit!

And I really, really don't care

that it needs lots and lots of work.

That guide price of 79,000 was very attractive

but as a Grade II listed cottage,

it will sadly be far from trouble free

and it has no outside space.

What does a local estate agent think?

The property itself does need some work doing to it.

It hasn't been renovated for quite some time,

so it is in a basic condition where the kitchen and bathroom

and the property itself needs to be done throughout.

'So if you did the work,

'what kind of rental could you get for the cottage?'

Once renovated, I think this property would fetch about £650 per calendar month.

'What about selling the place on?'

If this property is done up to a good standard throughout,

the resale value would be 165 to £170,000.

Well, any property of this age is going to have its problems.

But I think, in general, this place is pretty good.

You know, whoever bought this wouldn't have been looking at the damp,

or looking at the weird placement of the rooms.

They would have just absolutely fallen in love with its charm.

Who can blame them? Let's find out who bought it when it went under the hammer.

Grade II listed, two-storey, two-bedroomed period cottage for modernisation.

A proper cottage.

Guide price is 79. We'll round that up to 80. Who'll start me at 80?

Thank you. Good man. That's the way. 80 I've got.

At 80. At 80,000. At 80.

82. 83.

84. 85.

86 in purple at the back. 86.

87. 88.

89. 90. At 90.

At 90. Here he goes again at 91.

At 91. Need two from one of you.

First one who says it... 92.

93. At 93. 94.

95. Coming back down to 96.

97.

98. 99.

100.

101 is you, sir.

101.

102. 103.

104.

105. 106.

107. 108.

109.

110.

Eleven.

At 111 at the back. I'll take a half...

111,500.

112.

112.

112. Are you sure? OK.

At 112, then, stood at the back in the purple t-shirt.

He's got it at 1-1-2.

Sir, yours. Well done.

That successful bid of 112,000,

33,000 over the guide price, came from Phil.

Along with his wife, Donna,

he runs a company selling decorative interiors.

You know, furniture and stuff.

I caught up with Phil at his purchase to find out his plans.

-Phil, congratulations.

-Thank you.

I'm sure there's a lot of people must be very jealous of you!

-Amazing place.

-It's a lovely cottage.

We've been looking for the best part of 18 months

to find a little project like this.

So we're quite pleased, actually.

It ticks all the boxes. It's quite idyllic, really.

Is this a place for you to live?

No, we're probably not going to live here.

But it's got masses of potential as a buy-to-let, as a holiday cottage,

and we may use it - we've been asked by magazines

if they want to come and photograph our stuff in the cottage.

-Oh!

-So that's quite exciting, perhaps as another dimension to what we do.

Wow. So using it as a basis for a photo shoot.

Yeah, I think it could be interesting.

'It may not be ready for a close-up at the moment,

'but if Phil renovates this cottage sympathetically

'and fills it with choice furnishings,

'he could indeed end up with a model property.'

So tell me what you're going to do with the little cottage to sort it out.

We're going to change upstairs. We'll relocate the bathroom, perhaps to the middle

and make the smaller bedroom larger.

The floors need levelling.

Anything you do, you'll have to get Listed Buildings Approval.

Yeah, we've already had a chat with the conservation officer

to see what we're allowed to do.

We'll work alongside them.

A lot of people don't realise that listed buildings, it's what you do inside as well.

It covers, if you wanted to hack off the plaster

or change the floor or do whatever, other than simple painting,

they can have a say in that, can't they?

Definitely. I like to listen to what they've got to say.

We like to preserve the building.

It's 300 years old. It deserves some respect

in terms of how you actually change it.

'So, open plan living and glossy kitchen units are out on this one.

'Phew!'

So what's the budget for the work?

A good 12, probably. Possibly maybe to 15.

-We'll see!

-Who's doing the work?

A local builder from Dartmouth.

-Oh.

-And we hope he'll do a good job.

Has he given you any idea of timescales?

It's only a little cottage, so I don't think it'll take more than a couple of months

at the latest. Three months.

Trouble with old things, you don't know what you'll find when you start poking about.

Again, the builder reassures us

that there's not too much unforeseen.

There is perhaps with the chimney,

but we're assured that it's going to be all right!

'Well, full marks for confidence, Phil!'

-#

-Don't worry

-#

-About a thing

-#

-Cos every little thing

-#

-Gonna be all right.

-#

'But I can't help worrying that his 15 grand budget will disappear in a flash

'although this is not his first renovation project.'

We bought a little house in France.

That wasn't, again, too big a project.

Cos you don't speak the language, don't know the rules, don't know how it works there.

That was a great challenge. Get yourself understood and get the job done.

And achieve a result, which again, takes quite a bit of doing.

So this shouldn't be anything by comparison, really.

A piece of cake!

Well, there's no doubt that Phil's got himself an incredible little property here.

However, with such character comes all sorts of unknowns

and for that, I think, you need to set aside a really big budget.

I don't think 12 grand is going to do it.

My guess? Double that.

You can find out how he gets on later in the show.

Today I'm in Ilford, Essex, which was once home to John Logie Baird.

He, fact fans, was the Scottish inventor who built the first working TV

and I, for one, am very glad he did!

I'm here today to see an attractive double-fronted period property

that's been arranged as two two-bedroomed flats.

Now, it had a guide price of £330,000.

It certainly looks impressive from here!

This is a substantial property

which, up close, looks like it may be in need of a substantial amount of work.

Let's take a peek inside.

Well, this is a big old property.

Nice high ceilings, just what I like to see.

It's in a bit of a state, though, and you can really smell the damp.

But a wonderful size room,

beautiful big window, already double-glazed.

You can see there's central heating. It just needs a complete refurb.

It needs some TLC. Put the love back!

This room I'm in at the front is called Bedroom Two in the auction catalogue.

Down the hall, the room behind it, is Bedroom One,

which overlooks the garden.

Across the hall is the kitchen.

And behind that, in an extension, is the former utility room

which, according to the catalogue, leads to the bathroom!

To the front of the kitchen is the living room,

a fabulous size, but I'm not so sure about the brick fireplace!

The flat upstairs has a similar layout.

The rooms have grand proportions, yet it all feels a little pokey.

This property deserves to be turned back into a fantastic family home

and restored to its full grandeur.

Financially, that's also the best option.

Similar-sized houses in the local area sell for as much as 550,000

while sub-divided flats sell for 200 grand each.

And, even better, planning permission has already been granted

to turn this back into a home, including the addition of a loft conversion.

Having looked on the council website recently,

what I found interesting was that the council don't want to create lots of homes

within a house like this.

In fact, they'd rather turn this back from two separate dwellings into one big family house.

Now, here are the plans that come with this auction lot.

You've got as it is, and the proposed plans.

So we've got the ground floor here

and some really super living areas.

It's so lovely to have all this space to play with

and imagine a family living in it.

You've got one, two, three big family living areas,

a nice L-shaped kitchen at the back.

Up on the first floor, you've got one, two, three, four really good-sized bedrooms.

Up some stairs to the loft space,

you've got a really good L-shaped bedroom up there

with an en-suite bathroom.

Can you imagine what a cracking family house this is going to be once converted?

Really, really good.

We asked a local estate agent for his opinion of this property,

which had a guide price of 330,000.

First, let's find out more about its location.

You're in north Ilford, which is predominantly a commuter belt.

Houses don't come up for sale here very often,

it's a place where they find, they like the area and they stay for a long time.

Now, if this flat was renovated with its current layout

of two two-bedroomed flats,

how much could each flat achieve if rented out?

You could rent the two-bedroomed flats for about £750 per calendar month.

That's a combined rental return of £1,500 per calendar month.

But if the property was converted as per the plans,

it could achieve as much as £1,600 per calendar month.

Now, what about sale valuations?

The two-bedroomed flats you could sell on for £200,000.

Added together, that's a grand total of £400,000.

But renovate the property using the pre-approved plans

and the estate agent believes it could sell for 550,000.

Oh, there is a lot of work ahead for the new owner.

But at least this property comes with full planning permission.

I think the plans are good, plus conversion sees the biggest return.

And that's what it's about.

Let's see who fancied this challenge when it went under the hammer.

Who'd like to kick off on this?

300? I'll take 300.

300 straight off.

305.

310. 315.

320.

325.

330 on the phone.

-330.

-330.

335 with you.

340.

At 335. 336?

336.

337.

The bids were flying fast and furious.

We rejoin the auction action at 350,000.

350 with you.

351 elsewhere?

351.

Back in. 352?

352.

353.

To the phone?

In the room at 352.

First time. Second time.

Third and last time. Have you all done?

That cheery chap who made the winning bid of 352,000

is Asif.

He manages a mobile phone business

and has renovated two properties previously.

-Asif, congratulations.

-Thank you.

Tell me, what is the grand plan for this property?

We've got two plans. Plan A, to make it four flats.

And Plan B, to make it a big house with six bedrooms.

But we'll go first with Plan A, subject to planning permission.

I know this property comes with planning permission anyway

-to convert it back into a family house.

-Yes.

But you want to take it one stage further and put more bedrooms in?

Yes, because we have checked the architect which we got with the planning permission,

but that's not ideally what we suppose to do with it so we're going to change it.

We will go with Plan A first.

If we make it four flats, it's going to be easy to sell.

OK, Plan A. Four flats. It's currently laid out as two flats.

How is the layout going to work?

It's going to be two two-bedroomed on ground floor with gardens.

And one one-bedroom on the first floor.

And one two-bedroomed with a reception on first floor

and two rooms in the loft

both of them with en-suites.

What do you think the chances are of getting planning permission on that?

I spoke to my architect. That's why we've got Plan A and Plan B.

If Plan A fails, Plan B obviously is not going to fail

because we know we can get it easily.

'I have my doubts that Asif's plans for four flats will be looked upon favourably by local planners.

'And is the benefit of six bedrooms worth the expense and delays

'when he could start right away using the already passed plans for a five-bedroomed house?'

What sort of budget have you set aside to renovate four flats?

How much money do you need for that?

£90,000 off the mark that we got for it.

If we're going to make it one house,

we'll spend somewhere around 65 to £70,000.

What's your timescale, Asif, if you go with Plan A?

Plan A, three to four months.

And what if it's Plan B? Quicker? Sooner?

Yeah, quicker, because then we don't need to do so much work.

No gas meters, no extra boilers,

so everything's going to be less work for the house.

'It seems to me that schedule-wise and budget-wise,

'the option of converting this into a house

'should be Plan A rather than Plan B.

'As Asif runs a mobile phone business

'and only recently decided to try property developing,

'could it end up being his calling?'

I bought two properties and I'm still doing it.

And this is the big project which I want to do.

Do you have another business as well?

Yes, I do mobile phone business.

-So you're a busy man. You've got the mobile phone business and you're dabbling in property.

-Yes,

both together.

Do you get involved with the renovations? There's an awful lot of work to do on this building.

The plan is that I'll be around all the time.

I will do a visit every single day to the property.

Yes. But I will not make my hands dirty because I don't have time for that.

Is it going to be flats? Is it going to be a family house?

Well, I can't wait to find out what happens.

-Asif, it's been great meeting you.

-Thank you.

-Good luck with this project.

-Thank you so much.

I love Asif's enthusiasm for this project,

but I do worry about his Plan A,

especially with the current planning history on this road.

It seems to be a bit anti-flats.

At least he does have a Plan B

if his ideas are rejected.

So, will we return to find four flats or a large family home?

You can find out later in the programme.

'Coming up: in Openshaw, Manchester,

'there'd been some unwanted changes to this first floor flat.'

A-ha! That's where the front door is!

In Ilford, will it be Plan A or Plan B?

Whoever's going to buy it, they'll be very happy with it

because we did extremely good work on it.

But first, we go back to Devon.

Has Phil been busy with this cottage?

It's been a lot of hard work, but it's paid off.

It's time to return to the ever-so quaint village of Ipplepen in Devon,

and this delightful 300-year-old Grade II listed two-bed cottage.

I was very taken by its quaint character and rustic charm.

It's just incredible when you come up to this first floor.

Not even the dank odour of damp could kill my ardour for this cottage.

Its Grade II listing meant the renovation would be far from simple.

But...

Do you care? No.

No.

I was, simply, smitten.

As was Phil, who, with his wife Donna

purchased the property at auction for 112,000.

That's 33,000 over the guide price.

I'm sure there's a lot of people who'll be very jealous of you!

It's a lovely cottage. We've been looking for the best part of 18 months to find a project like this.

It's quite idyllic, really.

The couple have restored character properties like this previously.

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

Have they brought this place back to life?

This lovely little cottage looks like it's got at least another 300 years of life left in it

thanks to Phil and Donna's hard graft.

We're quite relieved it's finished.

It has been a lot of hard work.

But it's worked out very well, I must say.

And I have to agree.

The monumental task of renovating this property

began by digging out the floor on this level

in order to add a damp proof membrane,

no easy task, before fitting the slate tiles in the living area and kitchen,

where Phil's good work continued.

In this corner, there's new plumbing work.

The window sill is new, the beam's been exposed, the stonework.

And this piece of wood's been sculptured to fit into this section.

This attention to detail and sensitive restoration

is in evidence throughout

and was completed in keeping with the property's Grade II listing.

So the walls were replastered using a specialist lime-based treatment

and decorated using a chalk-based paint.

We spoke to Conservation at the beginning.

They're very good in their advice.

We obviously didn't ignore that

and carried on with the project of restoring the house, really,

to its full character, full potential.

In the master bedroom, I adore the exposed beams,

now they've been stripped and sanded clean of the crusty black paint.

Well, we've uncovered the beams,

replastered throughout,

put new wiring in.

We uncovered this, which was underneath wallpaper, and made good.

The window sills are new.

And repainted.

In the bathroom, work is still to be completed,

but overall I'm really impressed by the quality craftsmanship

and Phil's team of tradesmen.

The renovation's taken four months to get to this stage.

Phil and his wife spent the first six months researching the best methods

to restore a Grade II listed property such as this.

I was concerned that their budget of 12 to £15,000

seemed a bit tight for a Grade II restoration.

So, how did it turn out?

We spent about 25,000. Because of the nature of the property,

we had to repair quite a lot of the building.

And that's added to the costs.

Add the £25,000 outlay so far

to the purchase price of 112,000

and that means a total investment to date of £137,000.

So, while Phil has brought this cottage back to life,

will it bring him back a profit?

We invited two local property experts to give us their opinions,

including the one who viewed the cottage previously.

Coming back to the property again today,

it's really good to see that the transformation's gone through.

It looks really good throughout. Very light, bright,

and a very nice property.

It's fantastic.

It's everything you want from "Ye Olde Cottage".

Beams everywhere, log fire,

lovely kitchen, stone reveals to the windows.

It's just the business.

So, the property experts are impressed, quite rightly too.

How much do they believe the property could achieve if sold,

bearing in mind Phil's total outlay to date of 137,000?

If I were to put this property on the market, I'd be looking at a figure

of 165 to £170,000.

I'd put the property on the market at 179,950.

Those figures, if achieved,

would give the couple a pre-tax profit

of between 28 and just under £43,000.

But Phil feels the cottage is worth more

and has had an independent valuation of 190,000.

Now, what about rentals?

I'd be looking at achieving between 650 and £700 per calendar month.

On a per calendar month basis, I'd be looking to achieve around £700.

That could give Phil and his wife a rental yield of between 5.5 and 6.5 per cent.

So, will they sell up or let it?

We're probably going to sell it, actually.

Sell it, reluctantly.

But there's a need for homes in this particular area

and I think it'll be a lovely home for a nice young family.

Developing property for financial reward is sometimes the name of the game.

However, if you can also bring a 300-year-old cottage like this back to life

for many more generations to enjoy,

then the rewards are far greater than money alone.

For the next property that went under the hammer, I'm in Manchester.

Well, in any great city, there's often an area

which hasn't yet benefited from regeneration or positive movement in terms of house prices.

However, those can be the areas to really look out for if you're a property investor

because the theory goes the prices are only going to go one way.

Well, such is the situation here in Openshaw, Greater Manchester.

It's got good connections into the city with road and rail links,

good local amenities, and yet property prices are still fairly low.

Which means if you're a buy-to-let investor,

the potential for yields is very high.

So this is an area where you can buy a home or invest

without spending a fortune.

There are certainly signs that there is some investment in the area.

The property I'm here to see sounds like it could fit the bill perfectly.

It's a fairly modern two-bedroomed flat in this building here.

It's actually the upstairs flat.

Let's take a look, because of course it depends on what it's like inside.

Right. It doesn't have a door.

That's a first!

Great!

The flat went to auction guided at 25,000.

A-ha! That's where the front door is!

That's one of the first jobs to do,

make the place properly secure.

But what have we got? This is the living area.

Hmm, you know. I mean, yes, it's a mess,

but given the age of the building, I wouldn't expect any major structural issues

so you've just got to see through what is a fairly chaotic state at the moment.

Likewise here in the kitchen.

Basic total refurbishment required. Also no double glazing. You'd want to put that in.

Electric storage heaters, so you might think about some kind of combination boiler

or basically, central heating.

New kitchen, probably new bathroom.

But as flats go, it's not a bad size.

The two bedrooms look a lot worse than they really are.

I think that once cleaned up and decorated, they should be fine.

Let's hope that on auction day,

the new owner secured the flat near to that £25,000 guide price

and has funds standing by to patch it up.

Because the missing front door was just the beginning of the work needed here.

Down this little corridor, you've got a bathroom, definitely in need of complete re-doing.

Storage cupboard there.

First of the bedrooms on this side, not a bad size.

The second bedroom, a bit of a box room

but again, not too bad.

So why would you bother with this place?

Let's just look at those numbers again.

Say you get this for around that guide price of £25,000.

Around here, this sort of place, done up,

is going to rent out between 450-ish and £500 a month.

Yeah,

so that's over, round about, £5,000 a year

for a £25,000 investment.

Let's add in a little bit to do up the refurbishment

and you've still got money - you're still on for something like a 20% yield.

The amount of money you've spent and what percentage of that you're getting back every year, 20%.

That means that in five years,

you would have completely paid for this place.

After that, everything you get from it is complete profit.

That's why somebody will buy it!

Ker-ching! So, this property then becomes a slot machine

paying out every month.

You'd barely have to press a button or pull a handle.

But there's one potential expense outside that could creep up on you.

At the front of the property, I walked past it quickly on my way in,

but I shouldn't have, because there is this plant.

Looks fairly innocuous.

But this thing is an absolute nightmare.

It's called Japanese knotweed.

It's not actually on the grounds of the flat or the building itself.

It's on the adjoining plot, but that doesn't matter.

This little devil has roots that go down, go into concrete, undermine foundations,

it's absolutely horrendous.

It's really difficult to get rid of as well.

It's so bad, it's notifiable, you have to tell the council you've got it,

and then pay somebody to get rid of it professionally.

Not good news, but it's got to go!

So let's hope this flat doesn't become a knotty problem

for some unsuspecting buyer.

And while we're on the subject of greenery,

the other bad news is that the flat upstairs doesn't have access to the sizeable garden area.

That all belongs to the downstairs property.

On the good news front, it does have a parking space.

We invited a local estate agent to come and have a look around.

Would he recommend any structural changes?

I wouldn't change any walls, move anything around in the property.

The layout is as it is, and it's a good layout for a two-bed apartment.

But you would be changing the bathroom, the kitchen,

you may, if there's a gas supply to the property, change the electric storage heaters

for gas central heating.

'And if you were going to live here as a tenant,

'what rent would you expect to pay?'

Once this property has been fully refurbished,

I'd expect it to bring a rental value of between £375 and £395 per calendar month.

'How much does the estate agent think the flat could be valued at

'after a full refurbishment?'

Once this property has been refurbished, the re-sale value of it

would be between £55,000 to £60,000.

A slight downside to the flat is you don't have any outdoor space.

You've got right of access, but this garden isn't yours. It belongs to the downstairs flat.

But with those kind of rental yields possible, who cares?

This is a great one to go for. Let's see who agreed when it went under the hammer.

Lot four. Two-bedroomed upper-floor flat.

Got a bid on this already at £10,000

but it's not going to go for 10,000. 10,000 I have on my right.

12,000. 12,000 on my left, seated.

14.

At £14,000. Do we see 16?

At £16,000. Thank you.

At £16,000. 17,000. Thank you.

At 18. At 18,000. 18 I have.

19. At £19,000. Are we done? Do we see 20?

20,000 on my right, then.

At £20,000. I'll take a half.

At 20,000. 500.

21, now. It's against you, sir.

At 21,000.

21,500. 22.

At 22. 22,500.

22,500. 23.

At 23,000. New bid, 23,500. 24?

At 24. 24,500.

25. At £25,000.

25,500. 25,500, new bid.

26? At 26.

26,500. 27?

No. At 26,500, then, seated.

For the first time. No, he's back in again.

At £27,000.

27,000 for the first time.

Second time. Third and final time.

There we go, sir. Your paddle number?

That successful bidder who paid £27,000,

was Kasim, or Kas, as he's known, here on the left with his builder Naz.

Kas is a doctor of chemistry,

so let's hope he's got a successful formula up his sleeve

for renovating property.

But as his builder's come to give the flat the once-over,

maybe they're only at the experimental stage with it.

-Kas, Naz, great to meet you both.

-Hi.

-Congratulations.

-Thanks.

-Tell me why you wanted to buy the place.

I've been looking for places like this for a while.

I'm looking for places which produce about a 20% yield.

It was in the auction for £25,000 guide price. I got it for 27.

And maybe three or four thousand pounds work.

And I think I could rent this for £500 a month.

Which works out at a 20% yield.

Well, he's a man after my own heart, with those returns.

There isn't much Kas doesn't know about turning a profit on property.

He learned a lot when he started helping out with his father's property business.

And it all went upwards from there.

Kas has a buy-to-let portfolio of 40 or so properties.

Until five years ago, he had a contract with the Home Office

to provide housing for 5,500 people.

But when that contract ended in 2007,

he ended up doing something completely different.

After that, I bought a restaurant.

I ran the restaurant for a couple of years.

Then got very bored and went to India, bought a farm, set up a dairy,

we're selling the milk.

And ran that, and then came back here and started doing this again.

Kas has a PhD in chemistry from Oxford.

But he's swapped the periodic table for flat-pack tables

to furnish his growing buy-to-let portfolio.

And his builder Naz is a crucial element in the equation.

So what are the plans and the budget here?

We're going to rip the whole bathroom, and the kitchen.

All the rooms. We're looking in the region of four to 5k to sort it out.

-How long do you think it'll take?

-A couple of weeks.

-Two weeks?!

-Well, nine days, then.

-Nine days?!

-In that region.

I wasn't suggesting you go less, I was suggesting more!

We've got a team of workers that come in at a particular time, do their bit and go.

The next batch will come in and do whatever they need to do,

-like plumbing the whole place.

-Wow.

-Yeah.

We don't mess about!

So, Kas, obviously you've employed a super-builder!

-Is that really important?

-It's very important

because from today I'm paying council tax on this property.

And I've already got tenants who want to move in to this property.

-So, basically, a week from today...

-Hopefully. Nine days.

-I'm saying six days, he's got to finish it in six days!

-Nine days!

'Well, he makes it sound incredibly easy,

'but is, in fact, working hard for his money.

'He has a very refreshing approach to forming a good relationship with his tenants.'

I don't ask them to put the money in my bank

and not ever bother coming to the properties.

I come and meet the tenants on a monthly basis.

I sit with them, pick up the rent and have a look around the house.

Also, I have a good chat with them.

So I know their brothers, their sisters, their children.

And they invite me to their birthday parties!

And if you do that kind of thing, people become shy about not paying you rent

because they know you in a personal way.

That's how I do it.

-Congratulations. It's really great to meet you.

-Thank you very much.

-Lovely story.

-Thank you very much.

'So, Kas and Naz showing that you can get

those extraordinarily high returns on your investment with property these days.

You don't need a degree in chemistry to do it.

What you do need is some fairly basic skills in human relations.

And dedication.

You can find out if this place is completed in just six days

later in the show.

So, have our fearless developers emerged victorious?

-Or have they floundered in the shallow end?

-It's time to find out.

Back now to Ilford, Essex.

Earlier in the programme, for £352,000,

Asif had bought a grand mid-terraced property on this road of imposing houses.

It had been converted into two flats.

The flats were in poor decorative order

and the back garden was a jungle.

Asif owns a mobile phone business with his brother.

This was his third property investment

and he planned to ring the changes with it.

It had planning permission to convert it back to a single house,

but Asif was definitely a man with a plan.

In fact, more than one.

What is the grand plan for this property?

We've got two plans. Plan A to make it four flats.

And Plan B to make it a big house with six bedrooms.

But we'll go first with Plan A, subject to planning permission.

Well, nearly nine months later,

we've returned to see what Asif has achieved.

There are new double-glazed windows throughout

and skylights in the re-tiled roof.

At the back, the property now has a garden.

And this impressive ground-floor extension runs the width of the house.

I say house because that's what it is.

Asif had his application for four flats turned down.

So he went with his Plan B,

to create one magnificent house.

With this very stylish kitchen that his brother helped design,

Asif's delighted with the look they've created.

Yeah, the kitchen is extremely nice.

You can see the flashback and the tiling.

The idea was to have a standard kitchen, not to spend a lot of money on it,

but all of a sudden we changed the plan that no, we should have a full kitchen.

We went to a DIY store. The combination of colours was already there.

What we did was a bit more mix and match with the colours combination with the purple.

And the cream, and the purple combination, it's really nice and to an extremely good standard.

At the other end of the extension is a new dining area

where the former bathroom was.

Plus the first of three bathrooms.

The former kitchen has been knocked through to the living room

and removing the two chimney breasts has made the room even bigger.

Across the hall, the bay-fronted reception room should be lovely,

once the carpet's laid.

Upstairs, there was a separate self-contained flat

which Asif has now transformed into four bedrooms.

And there's this high quality family bathroom.

Plus an en-suite in the front master bedroom.

And it doesn't end here, because Asif got planning permission

to add two further bedrooms up in the attic.

So the house now has six bedrooms, and this is the third family bathroom

beautifully finished and equipped. There's so much accommodation here.

It's a big house. A big family house.

I think whoever buys it will be very happy with it

because we did extremely good work on it,

especially the kitchen and the bathrooms and the tiling.

We made it to a very high standard.

Because the house is worth a lot of money,

for that reason I was thinking if I'm going to buy a house, spending that sort of money,

I really need extremely good work. And that's what we've done.

You can see where the money's been spent, all right.

I'm impressed with Asif's attention to detail

and the luxury feel he's created throughout.

But I'm keen to know how this has impacted on his budget

which he'd set at 90,000 for the four flat conversion,

and 65 to 70 for the single house.

We went over budget. The reason was we didn't keep it to the standard,

we went to the extremely high standard. That was the reason.

We went on the budget from 90 to £95,000 on it.

Added to the £352,000 Asif paid at auction,

that takes his total investment here to 447,000.

His plans haven't changed.

He's still looking to sell.

So time we got some opinions and those all-important valuations

from two local estate agents.

He's done very well. The finish is lovely.

The kitchen is going to be very nice. It's got the family room as well.

The kitchen, the dining room there. It'll be the heart of the home.

I particularly like the kitchen. They've thought outside the box.

The colours they've used, a lot of people wouldn't take a risk with that,

whereas they've taken that risk and it's worked for them.

Putting the sixth bedroom in the loft was a fantastic plan.

It's really opened it out, with a Juliet balcony.

I can imagine myself sitting there after work with a glass of wine.

That's a very nice touch.

You've got six bedrooms and four bathrooms.

It's a property that's going to suit a big family.

The estate agents think the house could rent for between £1,600 and £1,800 per calendar month.

But the plan was always to sell.

So will the re-sale valuations be more than the 447,000 he's invested here?

If I was looking to sell it, we're probably looking at figures around the 550,000 mark.

If I put it on the market today, I'd put it on at £550,000.

Those agreed valuations would generate a gross profit for Asif

of 103,000 before taxes and expenses.

550, yes. That's something we want to achieve on this property.

Or maybe a bit more, but we're happy with 550.

Asif runs a mobile phone business with his brother.

But after the success of this project,

could he see property developing as a new calling for him?

Hopefully, yes. I'm looking forward to, after the sale of this property,

then I'll make my mind up as to what to do in the future.

Could he be tempted to do an even bigger refurbishment next time?

I'd love to do a bigger one than this one

because all the small projects look small to me now because of doing this big one.

But I'm looking forward to it. If I get something bigger, why not? I'll do it.

Openshaw in Greater Manchester is a promising place for investors.

Parts of the area have seen some regeneration

and the arrival of some major retailers.

And with a healthy rental market and low property prices,

this is definitely hunting ground for some very impressive profits.

It was these elements that convinced chemistry PhD and property developer Kas

here on the left with his builder Naz,

to pay £27,000 for this first-floor flat.

The flat was in terrible condition.

It didn't even have a front door.

Kas is now a full-time buy-to-let investor

with a large portfolio,

and he was confident that the flat would give him the return he was after.

I'm looking for places which produce about a 20% yield.

Doctor of Chemistry Kas hasn't created this investment in the lab.

It's for real.

But I thought his builder Naz must have misread his lab report

of the time the refurbishment would take.

-A couple of weeks.

-Two weeks?!

-Well, nine days, then.

-Nine days?!

I wasn't suggesting you go less! I was suggesting you go more!

OK, listen to this.

Just 12 days later, it's time to find out whether less really is more.

Kas and Naz have certainly been busy.

The skip on the drive is full and the flat now has a front door.

But what's been achieved inside?

Well, a great deal. Everywhere has been painted.

It's been furnished.

And there's new carpet throughout.

The living room even has tables and chairs.

And pictures ready to go up.

I can't believe the kitchen.

All this in less than two weeks.

So where did chemist Kas start?

We've taken the whole old kitchen out

and completely gutted the place.

All the pipes and everything.

We've redecorated, wallpapered the place,

we've got new white goods and obviously a new cooker.

Then last of all, we put in a new lino.

And I'm really pleased with everything.

Well, it's just 12 days since we last met Kas and his builder, Naz.

They had all the tradesmen standing by to come in, one after another.

Did it all run to schedule?

Monday morning we started gutting everything.

We ordered a skip. We decided to keep the old heaters because they were in good condition.

We could make use of them.

And basically, that was all that was left in this building.

Whip it out and start again in super-fast time.

And like the living room, both bedrooms have been furnished.

But the bathroom had been totally trashed.

That proved a bigger challenge, as Kas explains.

Well, the bathroom was pretty similar to the kitchen.

Basically, we ripped everything out.

But there was one difference.

The walls were in a really, really bad state.

I tried to re-tile, but it would have meant replastering the whole bathroom.

So I got this PVC sheeting and it hides all the imperfections in the wall.

And it looks really nice.

Kas spent £150 on the PVC sheeting

and saved on the suite, as well.

I used to pay a lot more for bathroom suites,

around 250 to £300.

But I found a place that did it for £180, so I was really pleased with that.

The big question I bet everyone wants to know the answer to,

is just how long did this refurbishment take?

It took six days.

Started on Monday, finished on Saturday night.

I knew we could do it, and we did it!

He's a liar.

We finished on Sunday, last night!

-He's lying!

-Only the last day!

Guys, guys, let's not quibble over one day!

You're already in the Homes under the Hammer fastest teams' hall of fame!

And in that record time, they've installed an electric water heater in the loft.

That cost £350.

But how did the rest of the spend go?

Did they stick to their budget of four to five thousand?

It went pretty good. Basically we did it in £4,200.

That £4,200 spend on top of the 27,000 Kas paid at auction,

takes his total investment here to £31,200.

And he's already got a tenant lined up.

Time to see what a couple of local estate agents will make of this fast show.

Does it suit you, sir?

The property itself has been refurbished

to a standard that I would call "good enough to rent."

The finish in here is absolutely fine. Very neutral, inoffensive decor.

Tenants will be extremely happy with it, yes.

If he was looking to resell the property,

I would suggest a few more changes.

I would put double glazing in. I might have chosen a different kitchen.

So, will the estate agents value the flat at more than the £31,200 Kas has invested here?

Currently I would put a market value in the region of £44,950.

If he was to sell the property, and make the changes I've suggested,

I would value this property at £59,000.

As it stands, then, a gross profit before taxes and expenses

of £13,750.

And potentially, if those changes were done,

£27,800.

-Very good.

-As I say, it's not really relevant

cos we're not going to sell it, but it's good to know.

No, Kas bought this flat with the intention of generating a yield of 20%.

To achieve that with his investment of £31,200

he needs a rental valuation of £520 a month, or more.

This particular property I feel would rent in today's market

around £495 per calendar month.

The rental for this property, furnished, would be £500 per calendar month.

Well, a whisker under 20%.

But Kas is delighted.

500 a month is 6,000 a year. And we bought for 27.

After everything's done up, it's cost us about 31.

And that's basically exactly 20%.

-So we've done really well, I think.

-Mm, yes. Excellent.

-Well done!

Well done. Thank you!

And don't do it again!

Not enough for you? Well, there's plenty more where they came from!

So make sure you join us next time on Homes under the Hammer.

-We'll see you then.

-Goodbye!

-Goodbye!

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