Ballpark Renovation Costs

[Pangloss]

Hi there!

We are house hunting in the Charente and are looking for a permanent home for ourselves plus outbuildings with potential for gites.

We have set our budget for buying (including all costs) and developing 2 x 1 bedroomed gites with open plan lounge, diner, kitchen, bedroom, shower room and wc. Though our business plan has 2 gites and a swimming pool ready for use 12 months after property purchase, we are to some extent time rich and cash poor so would intend to do as much of the work as possible ourselves.

Our ideal would be a barn that has enough height for 2 floors so that it's "upstairs to bed", tiled downstairs and wooden floors upstairs.

We have heard various guides for ballpark estimates eg:

• 700 euros per sq metre including roof - With this one it was not clear whether this was ground floor area or total floor area
• 300, 600, 900 euros per sq metre - Depending on how much you do yourself and how much you have to rely on the professionals. The same clarification required as above.
• Other random estimates from 400 to 1200 euros per sq metre with same lack of clarity.

We're not surprised at quotes per sq metre as our brother-in-law is a UK builder and quotes on this basis. His quotes are based on ground floor area and 2 stories for a fairly standard domestic project.

We'd like ballpark information that would help us to estimate the cost of our project in any given property that we're viewing without the need for calling in local builders for quotes (which doesn't seem practicable in a reasonable timescale).

As we're not builders ourselves we will only be buying outbuildings with good walls and roofs (though we have noticed that roofs rarely have waterproof membranes so will at the least need for the tiles to come off and be relaid with a membrane).

So......... We're looking for a ballpark figure per metre with enough information to understand what's included. We assume we'll need totally new wiring, plumbing, fosse and some insertion of doors & windows in stone walls. We'd like to leave beams exposed.

Any helpful advice gratefully received.

[cooperlola]

Any decent builder could take up to a year to actually turn up - one thing to bear in mind.

[Anton Redman]

Having read Voltaire I goolged Pangloss - a teacher of "metaphysico-theologico-cosmolonigology” welcome to the forum. If you want to run gites buy an existing business. Negotiate hard on price and have an income from day one. Alternatively if you want to renovate property do that. Do not confuse the two activities. Using insured registered professionals say 1200 Euros per useable square metre. Assuming you know what you are doing perhaps a third of that excluding labour. Twice over the last 12 months I have started to price jobs Q.S. style for ex colleagues on a room-by-room basis. Even that exercise takes a quarter of a day a room.

 

 

[LesFlamands]

Please, please, you can't do anything for a property you've not even bought.

Ballpark figures are banded about without any precision - habitable space, inc. TVA, exc. TVA, who knows.

Architects (bless the incompetent lot of them) are using around 1500 euros TTC per sq. m. for new build at the moment.

For renovation it could be anything. You need to waste a builders time and get an estimate then, perhaps, try 25% materials/75% labour.

As for roof screens, it's worked fine for hundred's of years without and I think you will have far more fundamental problems to deal with.

[KathyF]

[quote user="Pangloss"]

As we're not builders ourselves we will only be buying outbuildings with good walls and roofs (though we have noticed that roofs rarely have waterproof membranes so will at the least need for the tiles to come off and be relaid with a membrane).[/quote]

Our renovation was done in bits and pieces over some years, so can't help with ballpark figures, but it always turns out to cost more than you think. [:(] As far as roofs and membranes are concerned, even in green and moist Normandy, the new roof that had been put on our cottage before we bought it (the old blew off in a very bad storm) doesn't have a waterproof membrane and never leaks.

[timc17]

Pangloss,

With the utmost respect please see if there is a market for one bed gites in the Charente before you consider buying anything.

As regards renovation it's likely to take at least a year and unless you are fluent you will need to employ a project manager (as well as an architect) which could add around 10-15% to your costs.

 

[AnOther]

Excellent advice from all however, irrespective of cost or any other factors, this one sentence

"our business plan has 2 gites and a swimming pool ready for use 12 months after property purchase"

strikes me as hopelessly optimistic.

I think Antons advice is spot on, "If you want to run gites buy an existing business"

You don't say whether you'd be relying on Gite income for a living, but if you would be then please do your sums very carefully. I personally don't run Gites or any sort of accommodation but many others here do and I think the majority will tell you it's tough competative business to be in with over supply in many areas. I believe very few actually manage to make an exclusive living out of them and the economic situation in UK, coupled with the poor exchange rate, (neither of which look likely to improve in the short or medium term), can only make it harder.

As a final oblique comment, and with apologies if you've already researched this side of things, running a Gite business generally will NOT qualify you for health care in France and on the small scale you envisage most certainly won't.

Sorry if all the above sound rather negative but better have ones eyes wide open from the outset [:(]

 

[Cendrillon]

Good replies from all who have posted.

 

For the sake of research the OP could look on the various Gite websites to get an idea of how many there are already in the Charente. It's also possible to have a quick look at "availabilty" and see how many weeks are booked in various properties.

 

[Boiling a frog]

My neighbour has a three bedroom Gite with swimming pool ,gets on average 12 weeks a year occupancy ,another neighbour has a one bedroom gite, no swiming pool average about 2 weeks a year. Based in the Charente.

[Monika]

Imagine just 4 stone walls (35 square meters). No roof, nothing. Adding first floor, covering it with apexed roof. (1 Bedroom plus mezzanine.). Plus Extension with bathroom and 1 Bedroom.  Installing everything from plumbing, eletrics, Fosse, decorating  etc. etc. And it came to Euros 96'000. This was an extreme renovation, with Project Manager but might give you some idea Pangloss (we now have approx. 100 square meters)?  However  I often think we were crazy considering how many projects you could buy in France which require much less renovation or possibly just some TLC.

[BIG MAC]

I intend to do a conversion to my barn which is in every respect wheelchair friendly I hope this way to create a flexible space with a very specific appeal. Not a money mmaking venture so much as its a good way to get people who I hope wont trash the place and subsidise my bills a bit. I was interested at the quoted rates for new build...not that different to Blighty which is surprising.

[plastered]

I have been renovating here in the Charente for some years and in answer to what the renovation costs would be ? As has already been said it depends on what needs doing, a fosse? - €6000, roof ? - €125 m2, top end figure could be €1250 m2 of floor space that would be starting with 4 walls and not much else.

[Anton Redman]

"  I was interested at the quoted rates for new build...not that different to Blighty which is surprising. "  - What do you save your labour can live a bit cheaper but cotisation versus NHI is much more expensive. Also the regs on electrical sockets phone points etc are a pain. Saw a couple of Polish registered vans on the way home from the big weekly shop on Friday. Seen Roumanians before who start with a language advantage before but not Poles