I present Homes Under the Hammer – worst disasters I’ve seen… including buyers who turned up at house & it wasn’t there

PROPERTY expert Martin Roberts has presented daytime TV favourite Homes Under The Hammer since it began almost 21 years ago.

In that time he has viewed 3,000 homes of all shapes and sizes that have been sold at auction to be done up for sale or rent.

Arthur Edwards / The Sun

Arthur Edwards / The Sun

Martin, 60, says: “In that time I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly. We have gone through four or five financial crises where people say, ‘Property is doomed. It’s going to implode. We’re all going to lose our money’.

“Here we are 21 years on and I think property is still a sensible thing to look at putting your money into.

“Making money is never easy, but I believe that property still offers opportunities if you do it right, if you’re careful, if you do your due diligence and you make sensible decisions.”

In a Sun exclusive, Martin reveals the tips he has learnt from his two decades on Homes Under the Hammer for buying property at auction to do up.

Check the legals

When it comes to property you can repair the roof, you can fix subsidence, you can cure dry rot, you can remodel the interior.

What you cannot do easily is change a legal status. So, you must read the legal pack, to check out all those things that could be really nasty coming your way.

The people who’ve probably failed most significantly on Homes Under the Hammer are those people who didn’t look at the legals.

A buyer-beware story was the couple who, having bought a property at auction, could not find it.

They went to the place where they thought it was and the house wasn’t there.

So, they had to go to the post office and ask, ‘do you know of a house that sold at auction recently?’ It was completely in a different place than they were anticipating.

They got there, and the house was landlocked.

Their new property was sitting on land that was owned by somebody else and there was no right of access.

So, they couldn’t get to the house legally. The only way to get there was by helicopter.

It was a big mistake because you can’t cover that with Polyfilla and a bit of paint.

Budget correctly

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Most of us buy properties as somewhere to live. The moment you flip into doing it for making money or improving your finances or making yourself financially free, you have to view things in a much more cold-hearted way.

You don’t want to be in a situation where you run out of money.
We have seen a huge increase in the cost of building materials and labour.

You can now be paying an electrician £300 a day or even more. Double check that you’ve got up-to-date prices. Some people are just wildly optimistic about what it’s going to cost.

I went to a fairly run-down three-bed semi in Swindon, where the new owner told me ‘we need to do a damp-proof course, I’m going to re-roof, we need new electricity, new kitchen, new bathroom. I’m going to put on an extension and redo the garden’.

“So what’s your budget?” I asked. He replied “£2,000”. Needless to say he didn’t manage it. It’s better to come in under-budget than go over-budget and run out of money.

If you’re canny, you can do a really good job for a very reasonable amount of money.

Go to auction websites and buy second-hand kitchens that maybe have been taken out of showrooms that are beautiful and you can get a £20,000 kitchen for £2,000.

Bland is grand

Viewers often ask why so many of the properties on Homes Under the Hammer have grey carpets and white walls.

If you are doing up a house for YOU then absolutely go for it.

But if you’re doing up to rent out or sell on you really need to stick with something a bit more neutral rather than anything that’s going to limit the appeal.

High-end finishes in mid-market properties often do not yield a return on investment.

Avoid extensive renovations that don’t add proportionate value, such as converting bedrooms into a gym or home office in smaller properties.

Realistic timescale

The longest anyone has taken to do up a property was seven years.

Given that their idea might have been to make money reasonably quickly out of the property then that’s not a very good business model.

Because in all that time the property was probably costing them money. But they wanted to get it just right.

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I was actually doing the voiceover for the transformation and I wasn’t prepared to see a seven-years-younger me walk down the road in my corduroys and what I thought was quite trendy clothes.

I literally shrieked in the middle of the voiceover. That was very funny. Time goes on and I am definitely wiser about property than when I started on Homes Under the Hammer 21 years ago.

Where to buy

A great tip is – if you can – buy the worst house in the best street. A house in a good area will generally be a lot more bulletproof when it comes to ups and downs of the property market.

People will always want to live in nice neighbourhoods with decent schools and good transport links. Here are some areas of the country that could do well.

Manchester – Strong economic performance and ongoing regeneration.

Birmingham – Benefiting from the HS2 rail project and city-
centre redevelopment.

Liverpool – Increasingly popular with investors due to lower entry prices and high rental yields.

South Wales – The valleys of South Wales have good connections to Cardiff, but with low entry point properties still available.

There are some areas where prices are sluggish.

Parts of the North East – Some areas, such as Middlesbrough, have seen little growth.

Rural Areas – Limited employment opportunities in certain rural area can lead to stagnant property markets.

Avoid areas with high crime rates, poor schools, and lack of amenities. Research local council plans and community feedback to get a clear picture of a neighbourhood’s prospects.

New planning laws

Recent changes to permitted development rights make it easier to convert commercial properties into residential homes without full planning permission.

These changes can open up new investment opportunities but also require careful consideration of local market demand and compliance with regulations.

One new owner told me ‘we need to do a damp-proof course, I’m going to re-roof, we need new electricity, new kitchen, new bathroom’. His budget was £2,000. Needless to say he didn’t manage it

Finance

Property prices maybe not going up as much as they did. But then if you look over time, who wouldn’t have wanted to buy a property in London at the price they were 10 years ago?

And that pretty much holds true for the whole of the UK. It’s one of the reasons why I am still a huge fan of properties as an investment.

Because it’s a steady eddy, even with interest rates where they are now. We have just lived through a period where we got used to interest rates at 1 per cent and 2per cent. 

Now they are at 5 per cent, it’s made it tough for many people and it’s definitely causing a reworking of the finances. 

The longest anyone has taken to do up a property was seven years. Given that their idea might have been to make money reasonably quickly out of the property then that’s not a very good business model

But when I started out in property, I had a fixed-rate mortgage at 15per cent. So, compared to that, 5per cent still seems quite cheap.

Even now I think there’s still an opportunity if you buy at the right price in the right place to do well. But it’s not a given.

Not every property investment is going to make you money. So, it’s important that you do your due diligence and your research.

All the information you need is available online. They show historical data. They show information about property price growth and rental yields.

You can make informed decisions without having to leave your desk.

Raising money

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Securing finance is one of the most challenging aspects of property investment. Traditional buy-to-let mortgages require a significant deposit, often around 25 per cent.

But there are ways to finance a purchase with a minimum deposit, such as through bridging loans or partnering with other investors.

If you are buying at auction, you’ve got to pay for that property. When the hammer falls, you are committing to buying. It’s a legal contract.

You can’t make a mistake and then go, ‘Actually I can’t get the
money together’. If you commit to buying at auction, you need to be really on it.

A buyer-beware story was the couple who, having bought a property at auction, could not find it. They went to the place where they thought it was and the house wasn’t there.

But there might be ways that you can raise the finance by thinking a bit laterally.

You might know people who’ve got money which they want to
invest in a property, they don’t want to do the hard work. Perhaps friends or family members, as long as you set up a proper legal agreement.

It could be that you say to them ‘you’ve got the money, I’ve got the energy. I’ll find the property, I’ll do the work on it and then we split the profits’.

Parents helping out their kids is something which I think we’ve all relied on in years gone by. That’s how I bought my first house.

Or, you might want to team up with people, you might want to team up with friends, you might want to share costs.

Failing to budget for all expenses, including unexpected repairs. Also, not understanding the local market can lead to poor investment decisions.

Taking on too much debt can be risky if market conditions change. And if you’re running this as a business, make business, not emotional, decisions.

Safety

On the show, I try to make people aware of potential problems. And we are very health and safety conscious.

People need to know that you can go down to your local DIY store and you can buy a piece of equipment that will kill you very, very easily.

There’s nothing to stop you buying some things that if you use them wrongly will kill you, like a circular saw or an angle grinder.   

It’s really important that you do take it seriously and don’t embark on any projects or use any tools that you’re really not experienced to do.

Because there’s no amount of money that’s worth injuring yourself.