'I bought rundown house for £120,000 at auction - it's unrecognisable one year later'
'I bought rundown house for £120,000 at auction - it's unrecognisable one year later'
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House prices have been rising considerably over the last few years and although there are signs the market could be improving, it's unlikely you'll snap up a bargain. That is unless you manage to bag a cheap house at an auction, where properties usually get sold for under traditional market value. This is what 26-year-old Helena did after snapping up a bargain two-bed home in Bolton for just £120,000 at the end of 2022, and in just over a year she and her fiancé managed to transform it into a gorgeous family home - making it look almost unrecognisable.
Helena, from Hindley Green in Greater Manchester, and her partner Andy first got on the property ladder in 2020 when they purchased their first home, right before the pandemic. The couple managed to snap up a three-bed end-terraced house in Westhoughton, where Andy grew up, for £116,000.
But in 2022 the couple, who were searching for a new home, found that properties were so much more expensive than when they first started looking. Speaking to Manchester Evening News, as part of their Where I Live series, where they speak to different homeowners and hear about their journey, Helena explained: "We knew with our budget we wouldn't be able to get what we wanted because properties had shot up in price.
"We just wanted somewhere we could make our own within a reasonable budget. We wanted another character property as new builds aren't really for us. We viewed a lot of houses and we put an offer in on one, but we ended up in a bit of a bidding war with another couple. They were first-time buyers and the sellers chose them over us because there was no chain.".
