'I spent £15k renovating a rundown Greater Manchester house - and sold it for £92k more than I got it for'

Buying a property that needs work doing to it can be a great investment, especially if you manage to snap one up at a cheap price. By doing a DIY renovation and keeping costs low, you can significantly increase the value of a house and go on to sell it for much more than what you initially paid for it.

Whilst some may think this is a strenuous task, others find joy in buying, renovating and selling homes - also known as flipping - and see it as a lucrative career. Natalie, 44, took on a solo DIY renovation on a £73,000 home in Rochdale. After setting herself a small £15,000 budget - she managed to increase its value by an impressive £90,000.

The mum-of-two spoke to the Manchester Evening News as part of our Where I Live series. Each week we speak to a different homeowner or renter who lives in Greater Manchester to hear about their buying, renting or renovation journey - whilst taking a look at how they've transformed their home.

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Natalie, who is originally from Leeds, moved to Manchester for university and has since lived all over the region. She got on the property ladder at 25, starting out with a doer-upper in Salford.

"I bought my very first house when I was 25. Once I had finished uni, I had in my head that I wanted to buy a house by the time I was 25. I had my first offer accepted just before my 25th birthday. It was a proper doer-upper in Salford, it was an absolute dump," she said.

Natalie then met her husband and the pair bought their first house together in Warrington, before later moving into a new-build in Heywood, where she still lives today. But, after having her two children and being made redundant from her job as a lingerie buyer, Natalie decided that she wanted a new challenge.

"I used to work in Harrogate so I had a really long commute there and back. I really enjoyed my job but, after I had my two children, I knew I couldn’t keep doing it. Whilst I was on maternity leave I then got made redundant," she said. "I wasn’t sure what to do next but I wanted something that would challenge me.

"Whilst renovating our three houses I'd learnt a lot of DIY. I also grew up with parents who did a lot of DIY. For me, renovating is a hobby and something I enjoy. My husband and I then decided that we would buy a house together for me to renovate on my own."

Natalie then set about looking for a rundown house that needed a lot of work doing to it. "I was looking for an old house, something that hadn’t been touched since like the 70s or 80s. Ideally, I didn’t want to spend any more than £80,000 on buying it.

"I viewed around 25 houses. I saw the absolute worst of the worst and some which were way too good because they were too finished. Then I found this one which was total perfection."

Natalie came across a two-bed 1960s end townhouse in the Sudden area of Rochdale which was the ultimate renovation project. "When I first viewed it, it had nicotine-stained doors, ceilings and walls, grubby handles, the bathroom was an avocado coloured green with a wooden toilet seat, it had carpet in the bathroom and kitchen and it had really dark wood all over," she explained.

"I put an offer in as soon as I viewed it but it got rejected, so I kept looking around but I couldn’t stop thinking about that house. Other ones I looked at were terraced houses with small yards, but this one was an end-terrace with both a front and back garden. I carried on looking at a few more but I couldn’t shake it, so I went back and upped my offer and then they accepted it."

Natalie bought the house for £73,000 in late 2019, which she says was a 'steal'. As soon as she got the keys, she got stuck into renovating. "I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do with it, but I made some of it up as I went along," Natalie said.

"I knew I didn’t want to do anything major like put an extension in. It already had good windows and the central heating had recently been redone with a new boiler. I knew I wanted to rip the big fireplace out in the lounge because it was taking up so much space, so that was one of the first things that I did.

"The kitchen was really big, it ran across the full length of the house. It was a beautiful big space and it got the sun for the majority of the day. I knew I wanted to save doing that till last. I was there nearly every day, until Covid hit and all the shops shut so I couldn't do anything for a while."

Once things resumed, Natalie started renovating from top to bottom - doing all the work herself. "I started by gutting out the bathroom and ripping everything out of the bedrooms. The biggest challenge for me was the plumbing, it was something I’ve always been really scared of.

"When I was a kid we had a burst water pipe in the house and it’s like mentally scarred me, but I managed it. I was doing everything by myself so I had no one to check things with or run things by. My favourite part was the kitchen because it looked stunning when it was done. The fact I did the whole thing on my own made me feel so proud. I learnt so many techniques."

Natalie aimed to do the entire renovation for £10k, but ended up going over by £5k due to an unexpected issue with the roof. "My target was to try to do the entire renovation for £10k but the roof ended up needing redoing. Whilst I was renovating the master bedroom I kept noticing a patch on the ceiling.

"A roofer came out and he said the house could do with a new roof. Although it was an added cost, it was one of the best moves because it made the house look pristine from the outside and I felt reassured that there would be no more issues."

After finishing the renovation in late 2022, Natalie put her home on the market just before Christmas and sold at the end of January 2023 for £165,000 - £92,000 more than she had initially bought it for.

"I was beyond elated when I sold it after so much work had gone into it. Whenever I drive past the house now I feel a sense of pride. It’s the best feeling ever to know I did it all on my own. I pushed myself to do things I thought I couldn't."

Speaking about keeping costs down during the renovation, Natalie said: "I will always hunt down the cheapest things that you can find but that are still really good quality. I bought ex-display items and end of line clearance items which helped save a lot of money. The bathroom was an absolute steal."

Natalie added: "You need to think outside the box, so don't just go to B&Q. I bought loads of tiles from Facebook marketplace from people who had overestimated how much they needed. I bought taps off eBay which looked amazing that were an end of line stock, I paid about £20 and they were £100. Just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean it’s cheap quality.

"I’m desperate to buy another house and do another renovation on my own now that the market is starting to stabilise. I’d love my next project to be a studio flat, I think it would be a really fun property to flip. At the moment I live in Heywood with my kids and husband. But it’s not our forever home, we love renovating so we are already looking for our next project together."