Homes Under The Hammer in Crewe follows four friends who transformed two-bed
The quartet aimed to do up the house for just £3,000 after buying it at auction for over £80,000
James and Atif worked on the renovation(Image: BBC)
A Crewe two-bed house has featured on Homes Under the Hammer after being purchased at auction by a group of four friends looking to renovate a property.
The quartet - husband and wife Sarah and Tim, and friends James and Atif - purchased the mid-terrace in Crewe back in 2018 with plans to modernise and redecorate on a small budget of just £3,000.
However, they decided to go that little bit further and ended up spending more than they were originally prepared to in order to totally transform the terraced property.
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The house - on a busy main road through the town centre and not far from the train station - was bought at auction for £86,500, slightly over the guide price of £82,000.
After purchasing the property, Sarah told host Martin Roberts: "We have been looking to take a project on as we've all done a little bit with property before.
The living room had become outdated and needed a facelift(Image: BBC)
"We thought this would be a fun project to have a go at, although none of us are tradespeople."
She continued: "We had our eyes on this property as Tim and I used to live next door. We went to the auction for a bit of a reccy because we thought this was going to go for more than we were looking to spend - but actually, on the night it went our way."
The group gave themselves three months to finish the work, but after just a few weeks they realised the full potential of the property and so stripped it completely back to start from scratch.
As well as plastering each room, they also did a complete rewire and installed new plumbing. At the time of filming in 2018, none of the rooms were complete and they were planning to install a new bathroom and kitchen too.
The master bedroom had aged poorly(Image: BBC)
Sarah said: "Initially we thought we wanted to do a brief paint job and leave it fairly superficial and then we had a little think about and debated whether or not to keep it rather than sell it on and also we wanted a project that we could do together and try to meet trades people that we could work with on future projects. In the end we decided we would go for it and do a bit of an overhaul."
On the first revisit, after six months, the house was far from finished, and needed a lot of extra work done.
But on a third visit to the Crewe property, one year since presenter Martin Roberts first came to the house, the project was finally finished, and looked totally transformed.
The bathroom which looked better than some of the other rooms(Image: BBC)
Atif highlighted some of the reasons for the full renovation, saying: "I think it's also the little things, like you take a bit of wallpaper off and actually realise it does need plastering and that kind of help, so it would push us along a little bit."
Every room in the house had been transformed to a high standard, with the big differences coming in the living room and the kitchen.
The ugly brick fireplace was long gone, and the stairs had been spruced up, as well as the new carpet flooring and the re-plastered walls.
The kitchen looked a state when the quartet got to work(Image: BBC)
A new kitchen had been fitted, and a new bathroom was also in place upstairs, along with the bedrooms which had been done in the same bright finish as the downstairs.
They spoke to James and Atif who noted it was 364 days since they purchased the property as they lined up a BBQ celebration in the new garden for the first anniversary of the project.
Atif said on the project: "I think we've got a lot of stuff done in the short space of time, considering that James has done a huge amount of the work and we haven't had a vast amount of people come in.
"We had an electrician and a gas guy come in, but pretty much everything else has been done by ourselves.
The new living room, with the old fireplace removed and the stairs tidied up(Image: BBC)
Mum Sarah is expecting a second baby to add to the celebrations, and following the completion of the project, the group were happy to reveal they had avoided any fall outs and stayed as close friends.
"We didn't fall out" said Atif who then pointed at James and jokingly said "I hate him!"
After spending £18,000 on the works, the group decided to opt for rental rather than selling the property.
The newly fitted kitchen was completed to a high standard(Image: BBC)
Two estate agents arrived to give their new valuations, with the first quoting the house to be worth £118,000, and the second quoting £120,000.
That could generate the qroup a pre-tax profit of between £13,500 and £15,000
"I think I would definitely take that as a compliment", said Atif on the quotes figures for resale.
Rental estimates were given at £575pcm, and £600pcm, to which again the group were pleased with the results.
These figures would therefore generate the group a 6.5% to 7% yield, making their first renovation project a success.
Despite the challenges the group faced, they were willing to go again, but for now the main priority was the bottle of champagne on its way, with James closing the revisit saying: "It's always important to celebrate."
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