Crewe house on Homes Under The Hammer where ‘something serious was going on’

When it comes to viewing properties alarm bells ring when someone remarks ‘something quite serious is going on here’ when looking at issues. But as is always the case with Homes Under The Hammer no matter the condition there’s always a determined buyer ready to snap it up.

The team recently found themselves in Crewe where present Martin Roberts took a good look at a terrace property – which had issues of damp and dry rot. So much so one estate agent said it would cost between £10,000 and £25,000 just to make it safe to live in.

CheshireLive reports how when presenter Martin visited he took a closer look at the skirting boards, only for a large piece of wood he dubbed an “ex skirting board” to come away in his hand. The visibly concerned presenter remarked “What on earth is causing that?”

READ: BBC Homes under the Hammer visits five horrendous Stoke-on-Trent houses

He added: “In terms of space it’s not bad, but here we are again this recurring problem. What is going on here? This is really badly rotten.

“We’ve got the start of there of the little tendrils of dry rot as well. Something quite serious is going on here.”

The layout of the property was also peculiar. In a bizarre twist the front room was only accessible from the back of the house.

Despite the problems, Martin was still buoyant about the property. He optimistically remarked: “It’s a spacious house; it just needs some work.”

Data analyst Chris from Cheshire ended up paying £70,000 for the property – nearly three times the guide price of £25,000. It was his second project as a property developer.

He said: “We were just looking for a property to do up develop. We were looking for our first auction property and going through the process we wanted to buy somewhere close to home.”

Despite being apprehensive about paying a little too much at the auction, Chris was hopeful to do up the property, planning to either sell on the property or rent it out.

He and his partner planned to spend only £7,500 on the property with a £2,500 contingency. Martin was concerned over whether they would be able to stay within their budget.

He said: “When we originally bought it we expected to take the wallpaper off the walls. However the quality of the plaster underneath just fell off the wall when you peeled the wallpaper off.

“Despite this, they knocked the house all the way back to brick, re-plastered and boarded up the walls. They also changed the layout upstairs, but decided to keep the downstairs layout as it was.”

Chris did an impressive proportion of the work himself, only getting people in to refit the boiler and to knock the wall through upstairs. “In some ways I’ll be sad to leave it. But in other ways I’ll be glad to see the back of it”, said Chris.

Unfortunately, the extra work meant that Chris didn’t stay within the budget of £10,000. Instead, it ended up costing £22,000.

An estate agent valued the property at £110,000 for resale. For the rental market, he said it would command around £625 a month.

In the end, Chris decided that selling the property was the right thing to do. He said that he wanted to “move on from it”, giving him a pre-tax profit of £18,000.

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