Live in a church

[Simpo Two]

I rather liked this: https://www.leaders.co.uk/property/HAL230248

[Wacky Racer]

Quirky, although that white shower room looks like the gents in Manchester Victoria railway station.

Looks nice, but I suspect the novelty would soon wear off, and £400,000 plus is a lot of money.

Too open plan for me, but I'm sure plenty of people will like it.

[abzmike]

Quite nicely done that. Sometimes the spaces in renovated churches can be vast, and/or very ecclesiastical- but not here. I could live there.

[Simpo Two]

- and do I spy something very much like a DB9 Volante parked next to it?

[Some Gump]

Wacky Racer said:

Quirky, although that white shower room looks like the gents in Manchester Victoria railway station.

Looks nice, but I suspect the novelty would soon wear off,
.

This.

I'm not even mega tall, and those (gorgeous to be fair) beams were already pissing me off in the photos!
..then i saw the headroom over the settee, how could you ever open that window?

[wyson]

I’d be scared of heating bills and the grade 2 listing.

[Hugo Stiglitz]

7 apartments? It'd be interesting to visit it on an evening when everyone is in and how the noise travels.

[gangzoom]

wyson said:

I’d be scared of heating bills and the grade 2 listing.

Unless the building was renovated to the Passivhaus standards of a church conversation we recently stayed in the winter heating bill will be astronomical. High ceilings, lots of glazing(old), and looking at the pictures it doesn’t appear to have much additional internal insulation unless there is loads of additional insulation behind those wooden roof boards.

Lovely looking place to visit/stay in short term though.

[Simpo Two]

Some Gump said:

I'm not even mega tall, and those (gorgeous to be fair) beams were already pissing me off in the photos!
..then i saw the headroom over the settee, how could you ever open that window?

You pull it down from the top with a stick. But you wouldn't be able to see the TV due to the window reflected straight into it.

[Shnozz]

Wacky Racer said:

Quirky, although that white shower room looks like the gents in Manchester Victoria railway station.

Looks nice, but I suspect the novelty would soon wear off, and £400,000 plus is a lot of money.

Too open plan for me, but I'm sure plenty of people will like it.

Not sure where you are in the U.K. but £400k doesn’t go very far in a lot of the country these days. I think it’s pretty reasonable value wise for its size and location. If you’d have asked me to guess the price I would have come in above that.

I have an apartment with enormous amounts of high ceilings and glass and can confirm it is an utter wker to heat in winter. Likewise, it was 24 degrees in the week with the sun out. Without spending £500+ pcm on heating in winter it’s miserable.

I can’t remember ever having been in a church and feeling toasty..

[chip*]

Just around the corner from me, this converted church was on sale for absolutely ages, but it did eventually sell so there are buyers for such properties!


https://www.mylondon.news/news/property/gallery/in...

Edit to add the old listing with more photos:

https://www.nestseekers.com/1710988/2-br-semi-deta...

Edited by chip* on Saturday 3rd May 10:32

[BigMon]

This one is still for sale near me at £1.6 million which is a trifle ambitious based on it's location.

[Tango13]

£950k gets you this but no off road parking.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/148818641#/...

[Simpo Two]

£780K for this seems rather optimistic...

https://churchwoodstanley.co.uk/property/5-bed-cha...

[OzzyR1]

BigMon said:

This one is still for sale near me at £1.6 million which is a trifle ambitious based on it's location.

I love the look of that internally; not sure I'd want to live there full time though.

It's a massive space - a larger than average UK 3-bed would be 125m² - this is over 8x the floorplate!!

Someone must be making a loss or very close to it even if it sells at £1.6m.

Five things alone:
Stripping, insulating & re-slating the several roofs, install of new rooflights, renewal of leadwork, cleaning external stonework & external access scaffolding must have been around £250K
Assume it needed new underground drainage and full M&E install - c. £500K given the amount of UFH, ASHPs & sheer meterage of cable/pipe required to service that scale of building; plus from the description it has has a zoned AV install and full misting fire systems, neither of which are cheap
Stone flooring to the 650m² ground floor with levelling compound/substrate £50K minimum.
Multiple bespoke timber staircases, plus extensive edge balustrading/handrails to upper floors/galleries easily £100K
Blast cleaning existing walls/ceilings, prepping for decoration & painting (plus erection of the full internal scaffold likely needed) = £100K at least.

With VAT, the above items look to be in the region of £1.2m before anything else is done.

A lot of other strip-out, refurb & fit-out work required in addition, before accounting for purchase price, professional / design / BC / heritage fees etc etc.

Hard to see how the refurb costs stack up.

Edited by OzzyR1 on Monday 5th May 01:03

[gangzoom]

OzzyR1 said:

Hard to see how the refurb costs stack up.

I'm assuming some one did this to live in as their home versus trying to turn it round for a profit. I'm 100% sure the renovation work we did on our house hasn't added the value we spend on building works, especially as when you start finishing things based on individual taste, everyone will have a different view on whats nice/good and what isn't.

That church looks like an amazing space, but pretty overwhelming as a family home and you are also paying quite a lot to be overlooked by a multistory carpark, and to have cars permanently parked by the boundary. But clearly the people living there now felt doing the work was worthwhile.

[21TonyK]

OzzyR1 said:

Hard to see how the refurb costs stack up.

They dont. It was bought for 80K by a couple who I understand had a bit of a background in property.

Obviously spent a huge sum and then it was on the market for (ITSR) about 3M. Since then its sat and now back on at considerably less with an entertainment venue (club) opening immediately opposite.

Shame, I used to take my kids there 20 years ago when it was a "whacky warehouse" kids thing. Before that it was empty and vandalised for a bit.

Google tells the story.

[BigMon]

21TonyK said:

OzzyR1 said:

Hard to see how the refurb costs stack up.

They dont. It was bought for 80K by a couple who I understand had a bit of a background in property.

Obviously spent a huge sum and then it was on the market for (ITSR) about 3M. Since then its sat and now back on at considerably less with an entertainment venue (club) opening immediately opposite.

Shame, I used to take my kids there 20 years ago when it was a "whacky warehouse" kids thing. Before that it was empty and vandalised for a bit.

Google tells the story.

Yes, he is a builder. If you live in the Bay the story has, I think, been in either the Herald Express or on Spotted on Facebook.

They dug a colossal amount of pigeon st out of the tower and filled many skips IIRC.

I said to my wife when they were doing it, it was an odd choice and certainly not an investment. If it had been on top of Daddyhole Plain, or in Wellswood, Livermead, etc, etc it would have made perfect sense and probably sold in a heartbeat.

But hardly anyone is going to pay millions to live where it is, hence it's never sold.

Edited by BigMon on Monday 5th May 09:27

[21TonyK]

BigMon said:

21TonyK said:

OzzyR1 said:

Hard to see how the refurb costs stack up.

They dont. It was bought for 80K by a couple who I understand had a bit of a background in property.

Obviously spent a huge sum and then it was on the market for (ITSR) about 3M. Since then its sat and now back on at considerably less with an entertainment venue (club) opening immediately opposite.

Shame, I used to take my kids there 20 years ago when it was a "whacky warehouse" kids thing. Before that it was empty and vandalised for a bit.

Google tells the story.

Yes, he is a builder. If you live in the Bay the story has, I think, been in either the Herald Express or on Spotted on Facebook.

They dug a colossal amount of pigeon st out of the tower and filled many skips IIRC.

I said to my wife when they were doing it, it was an odd choice and certainly not an investment. If it had been on top of Daddyhole Plain, or in Wellswood, Livermead, etc, etc it would have made perfect sense and probably sold in a heartbeat.

But hardly anyone is going to pay millions to live where it is, hence it's never sold.

Edited by BigMon on Monday 5th May 09:27

Yep, a bit further up Meadfoot Road and it might be okay but even then (to me) it's an odd choice of project but given the purchase price it may have seems like a good investment at the time.

[SaulGoodman]

I love a good church conversion. So many get chopped up inside and lose all the character and point of having such a property - high ceilings, massive windows etc. That Torquay one looks lovely, but obviously I have no idea of the area...

Reminds me a bit of this one in Brighton - they've done a lovely job but more suited as an AirBnB or weekend place. Location is good in terms of where it is in relation to the beach but basically next to blocks of flats and hotels. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/131593055#/?channel=RES_BUY