Episode Information Property Ladder: Bishop's Waltham

Date Published:

12/06/2008

In a credit crunchingly volatile market Sarah's back, following two epic builds in Bishop's Waltham and Windsor. When money’s tight all round it pays to get the most bang for your buck, but does adding square footage always add value?

In Bishop's Waltham, Hampshire, tanning salon owners Andy and Amanda Tindall have bought a rather ordinary looking 1950s house. But there's nothing ordinary about their plans. They're gearing up to supersize their property into nothing short of a mansion, by adding extensions that will quadruple its size.

Despite original valuations of £950,000, £1.1 million and £1.3 million, eleven months on, Andy and Amanda still haven’t managed to find a buyer for their house. They're currently living in it and waiting to see what happens to the market. But they’ve not hung up their development hats - and have just started two new ones.

In Windsor, Royal Berkshire, metal engineer John Parnell are his wife Patsy have bought a Victorian mock Tudor property and are planning not one but two extensions to it.

They're relying on the experience from doing up their last 13 family homes to see them through a tight six month schedule.

Valuations originally came in at £675,000, £685,000 and £695,000, so John and Patsy decided to put it on the market for £695,000. After eight months in a steeply declining market, they accepted an offer of £595,000, making them a gross profit of just £12,000.

But making only a two per cent return on their development didn't stop them from going on to buy another property to develop...