Renovation costs

[Ann]

We have been advised by someone doing renovation projects that if you spend 50,000 euros on a property then you should budget 50,000 euros for the renovation.  Has anyone who has done a renovation found that they spend the equivalent of the purchase price on the renovations?

 

 

[Coco]

Unfortunately, how long is a piece of string?  How bad is the state of the property?  How much renovation do you want to do?  Do you want to stop at renovation or do you want to enlarge on what you've got? Do you want to renovate to holiday home standard?  Do you want to renovate to permanent home standard?  What are your standards?  The list and choices go on and on.  I would certainly  at least double what you THINK it will cost.

[Gardian]

Your friend may well have provided a good 'rule of thumb', but as St Amour says, there are so many other things to consider.

If it's a complete renovation from a ruin, then you might need to factor up by 2 or 3 times.  You must take it step by step, i.e. architect, builder's estimate (if you're not doing it yourself), material costs, etc, etc.

It's no different here to the UK: just another country. If you don't want to land in the ****, you cost it properly, add a big contingency for (inevitable) unforeseen expenditure ................. and then decide where to make the compromises !!!  

All the best.

[Monika]

 

If it's a complete renovation from a ruin, then you might need to factor up by 2 or 3 times.  You must take it step by step, i.e. architect, builder's estimate (if you're not doing it yourself), material costs, etc, etc.

Ours was a renovation from four original walls plus small extension and it was 3 times the cost of buying.

[Cassis]

Agree with all of the foregoing.  We got a quote for renovating our smallest outbuilding with a footprint of 90sqm and it was going to cost the equivalent of 70% of what we had paid for the whole property - which comprised the aforesaid building plus a 220sqm largely renovated farmhouse on 2 floors, a 200sqm barn in perfect condition with new roof and a hectare of land.  We decided not to bother.

[Ann]

Thank you all for your replies, we did think it was rather a tight budget to work with.  It is always useful to have advice from people but sometimes it needs clarification and the more opinions we have the easier I find it to come to a sensible conclusion.

[Anton Redman]

We bought for Euros 10,000 knowing we needed to replace the roof for the same amount of money and probably spent a total of Euros 30,000 above the purchase price.  1,000 Euros per square metre is often quoted as therenovation cost in France. We believe we can new build to a good standard at 800 Euros excluding our own labour. I cannot make a ratio between purchase price and renovaton cost make sense

If we ever move again in France we will probably self build

[Ann]

Self build is what my husband would prefer to do.  I know it would make sense as we could purchase a nice plot of land and design our own home, it would also be fun to work on the design, however, the idea does not appeal to me.

[Cassis]

What, you don't want to live in a caravan for 5 years?  Why ever not? [:)]

[Poppy]

Long story but we have been in our caravan for eight years and reckon on another eight. [:'(] Friends have stopped asking [blink]

[Cassis]

Join a circus?

[Poppy]

Look and feel more like a carthorse than a prancing horse. [+o(] Certainly feel as though I'm part of a circus though.

Don't think caravan will move daren't try we have carpenter ants.

I think the less you pay for the property the more you spend on it for example if you buy a barn for conversion you probably need to use the euro per squmetre as applied to new build. If you buy a livable house with elec water etc you need to list what you need/want to do and work out the cost.

[Cassis]

That's about the size of it.

[Monika]

Poppy, I think you expressed it exactly right, that's how it is, the less you pay the more you have to spend. I am curious? Why did you have to live in a caravan so long, I think this would make an interesting story!

[Poppy]

 Monika thanks for asking about a lifetime in the caravan. Afraid the story is not that interesting its just a series of  bad luck and bad decisions, neither necessarily a consequence of the other. We tend to run away from the PROJECT now and it is has been renamed the hobby. [8-)] Have learnt a lot on the way and live in a beautiful area so life is not too bad. The Cahors red anaesthetic has helped over some bad patches [:D] Can PM you if you are still curious.

[Gastines]

The biggest problem now with renovating a property yourself, must be the alteration of the CG Tax, unless it is going to be your main home and you are in the Tax system. Now that the only amounts you can offset are TVA bills from French registered workmen,  it does put a damper on a lot of the profit element and the fun [ some might disagree  with the fun word] of doing up a ruin yourself and looking at a house /home  you have put together yourselves.

The first 2 we bought were lucky enough to be in the old regime , when any materials you purchased;even from UK; you were allowed 3 times the invoice price off CGT if you did the work yourself. It did pay to keep a good set of books and notes as work progressed. The present system seems grossly unfair as we are supposed to be in an open market and in most cases ,we are buying what the French don't want.

I used to scour the adverts in the local papers for any items that I could use, whether it be timber/bathroom suites or curtains and we used to be able to save a fortune on both purchase price and  CGT. Not any more. I did write to a certain Mr Mandleson about it but as of yet, no reply.

Regards.

[Anton Redman]

[quote user="Poppy"]

Look and feel more like a carthorse than a prancing horse. [+o(] Certainly feel as though I'm part of a circus though.

Don't think caravan will move daren't try we have carpenter ants.

I think the less you pay for the property the more you spend on it for example if you buy a barn for conversion you probably need to use the euro per squmetre as applied to new build. If you buy a livable house with elec water etc you need to list what you need/want to do and work out the cost.

[/quote]

For what it is worth every time I have sat down with builders I like and trust we have come to the conclusion that quality for quality a barn conversion costs somewhere between 50% and 100% more than a new build of the same floor area. 

I have never seen anybody of the UK shows like Property Ladder sit down an do a real budget AKA fully costed bill of materials and labour so that they can explain where the extra money went. For instance the kitchen/dining room floor used 5 cubic metres of ready mixed cement with glass fibre which cost 90 Euros but saved 65 Euros on reinforcing mesh and an hours labout for two people. All you ever get is the bathroom cost £ 4,000 not £ 2,000.  

We always find it costs almost as much for grout and cement for floor tilling as the tiles do. We normally find that the line of listels round the room cost more than all the other tiles and materials. You can sit down with the Brico Depot catalogue and say Toute Faire's price list plus a visit to Bordeaux for Leroy Merin and work it through .  If the property is a serious percentage of your personnal wealth I would say it was time well spent.

Sorry if the above sounds a bit mean  but we met two very nice French ladies when were were house hunting who had simply run out of money  on their post divorce house renovations and were having to take a substantial loss. We also saw a number of partial renovations which the British owners were taking a loss on.

I thought Carpenter Ants were like Leather Face in "The Hills Have Eyes" and confined to America. Termites I already worry about. Whereabout in France have C As  reached ?

 

[Poppy]

Anton I fully understand what you are saying and agree re cement and grouting costing the equivalent of tiles. It is always difficult to think about paying for the things you can't see. How many people when looking at a new build  or complete renovation even think about never mind the cost of fosse, electrics, water, damproofing ,drainage, insulation etc.I did say need/WANT to cover the listel problem. We have found that French builders prefer new build and will shy away from conversion but that maybe because there is a lot of new build in the area sparked by interest free mortgages

Pretty sure they are carpenter ants and not termites. We also have termites in the area just west of Cahors in the Lot region. Same as BSE meant JCB.

[Ann]

Thank you all for your replies, they have been very helpful.