Are these Britain's cheapest houses?
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There are two new contenders for the title of the cheapest house in the UK. The houses are on the same street in Tonypandy in South Wales and are both up for auction. One is priced at £7,000 and the other at £5,000, so do you fancy snapping up the pair of bargains?
The terraced homes on Oak Street have three bedrooms, and plenty of reception space, but whoever takes them on needs to be up for a challenge. Photos of the pricier property are mainly of the boarded up and dilapidated exterior, revealing that one of the properties next door is also empty and in a terrible state of disrepair.
The only interior photo is of floorboards. The picture is taken from below, revealing that the ceiling underneath has come down, and a number of boards are missing. When this is the finest photo available of the inside, it is bound to set alarm bells ringing.
The second property isn't boarded up at the front, but that shouldn't fill you with excessive confidence about the state of the house.
The interior photos show there's an enormous amount of work to be done in order to restore the property to a habitable condition. The back section of the property is actually boarded up inside and out, so the estate agents haven't been able to get to it and verify what challenges may be lurking there.
The auctioneers say they are great investment opportunities for a builder, who will be able to snap up a property for the price of a second-hand car, renovate it inexpensively, and have it back on the market for rental or sale in a matter of months. An end-of-terrace house in good condition on the same road recently sold. Its asking price of £37,000 would indicate that a builder on a budget could make a decent profit.
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The hitch
The deal depends, however, on how much the properties eventually go for at auction. Here there's bad news for any potential investor, because we've heard this story before. Last February a terraced house in a former Welsh mining town was up for auction with a guide price of £750. In the end it sold for £15,000 - to a couple who reckoned it would cost £20,000 to make it into an attractive rental property.
In 2012 another run-down house in Tonypandy went up for auction with a guide price of £4,000. In the end it sold for £16,500 in just 45 seconds. And in 2011 another house in the Valleys was up for sale at £7,000. In that case it went for three times the guide price.
If these two houses follow the same pattern, they could easily fetch between £15,000 and £20,000, which is going to make it far more difficult for anyone to cash in.
But what do you think? Would you be up for the challenge? Let us know in the comments.
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