We’ve been looking into buying a house for several months now. Recently we found a beautiful one we really like. Custom built Sumimoto house. Only problem is it’s a bit on the older side (~22 years) and has never had a full renovation job. The owner left it maybe about a year ago so it’s quite dusty, and they even removed some of the light fixtures and back deck when they left.
For a 115 sqm property, at a minimum I think we’d be looking at:
-professional cleaning of the interior
-replacing the wallpaper
-fumigating (we found a dead cockroach during the viewing)
-installing a new back deck
-redoing at least some of the flooring.
-knocking down a wall to combine two bedrooms into 1
-replacing the tatami mats in the tatami room.
-cleaning the exterior and perhaps redoing the paint on the window frames
Fortunately it looks like the kitchen and bathroom areas were recently renovated so nothing to be done there, but the rest of the house definitely needs a bit of work.
I want to get an idea of what to expect before submitting an offer. Any idea what an undertaking like this in Kanagawa might cost? The property is ~7million yen cheaper than other options we looked at, so the budget for renovations is very much there. But just wondering what we could expect or if we should treat a property like this as a lost cause and just focus on newer (unfortunately uglier) properties.
Also, would a structural inspection be worth it? The property is by no means ancient, but at 22 years it’s on the older side by Japanese standards.
by ThrowRA-lost_reddit