In Leatherhead in deepest Surrey, resides would-be developer Natasha. She lives at home with her mum Debbie. At the tender age of 21, she’s already made a cool £100,000 developing a family house. Natasha’s jacked in her job as an estate agent so she can develop full time.
She's taken on a scruffy and uninspiring two-bed bungalow with an enormous 200 feet of garden. Natasha plans to extend it into a three bedroom house in just 10 weeks. It’s a seriously ambitious schedule, but Natasha is a seriously ambitious young woman. Natasha bought the house using her mum's cash. Mum bravely sold the family home, and has put all of her eggs one Natasha-shaped basket.
The bungalow cost a steep £330,000. The £82,000 budget looks low, and the £475,000 sale price is seriously steep. Her target £63,000 profit could be in for a nasty squeeze.
At the moment Natasha’s bungalow has two double bedrooms, one bathroom, one living room, a skinny kitchen, and a conservatory. The first part of Natasha’s plan is to extend the entire back of the house to create a large kitchen/breakfast room and living room. Then she’ll slice the bathroom in two and squeeze in an ensuite, but that means the family bathroom will be tiny. Even worse, the kitchen next door will end up a as seriously undersized bedroom.
Sarah's reckons that Natasha should extend a few feet further into that huge garden, meaning that the kitchen-diner can remain spacious, but what's essentially a cramped single bedroom can become an adequate double. Sarah also thinks a door between the living room and kitchen will add bags of value for minimum investment.
Work begins apace, and by week 10 the foundations are dug and thankfully Natasha went back to the planners and got planning permission to extend further into the garden. Unfortunately, though, she forgot to tell the builders about some of her planned changes, and there's no doorway between the kitchen and the living room. This makes for an awkward layout that won't necessarily appeal to the family market.
In a rush to get things finished, Natasha often hears what she wants to hear instead of listening to builders about how long each job will take. The concrete slab for the living room floor will take at least a couple of months to dry out, but Natasha's schedule dictates that it needs to dry in two weeks. In the end, the only option is to go for Sarah's more expensive option of a suspended floor - it might cost more, but will save Natasha a couple of mortgage payments, and mean the house will be finished sooner - imperative in a falling market.
Natasha finally gets her bungalow finished, and impressively it's only a few weeks behind schedule. Given all the changes, this is quite an achievement. The market has fallen considerably during this project, but Natasha is still sure she can get the £475,000 asking price she needs. She's done a great job on her light and airy bungalow, and the huge garden, skylights and quality finish mean it stands a fighting chance of hitting the ceiling price for a property of this type in Leatherhead.
The final figure for the development was £105,000, a whopping £28,000 over budget. Added to the £330,000 purchase price, Natasha needs to sell for £435,000 just to break even. Three agents value the property at an average of just £440,000. After putting the house on the market at £475,000 and failing to sell, for now Natasha has decided to move in herself.
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