A terraced house in Morriston that buyers cannot view, going to auction next month at £20,000.
A six-bedroom house above Horton Bay with three stone barns, the original stable bays and a coachman’s office, at £900,000.
Zoopla tags both as needing modernisation, and both count towards the figure that has put Swansea fourth in a UK ranking of places to buy a fixer-upper.
Research by The Property Buying Company found 160 of the 1,659 Swansea properties listed for sale last month carried the tag. At 9.6% that put the city joint fourth with Stoke-on-Trent, behind Blackpool, Huddersfield and Burnley, and ahead of Hull, Leicester, Oxford and York.
Swansea is the only place in Wales in the top ten.
The figure moves daily. When we ran the same filter this week it stood at 164.
One thing does stand out. Of the 160 counted in July, 155 were houses and just five were flats. In Aberdeen more than three-quarters of fixer-uppers are flats, and in Glasgow and Edinburgh around six in ten. Swansea’s version of this is almost entirely houses.
Karl McArdle, co-founder of The Property Buying Company, said the appeal was in the price and the freedom.
“Fixer-uppers can be an attractive option for buyers looking to customise a property to suit their style and needs, while purchasing at a more affordable price,” he said.
“Whilst they require time and commitment, fixer-uppers can offer substantial long-term value, making the effort well worth it.”
He buys houses for a living, so his view of the value is his own. And a lower price is not the same as a lower cost: lenders are often wary of properties without a working kitchen or bathroom, which pushes the cheapest end towards cash buyers and auctions.
What the tag does not tell you is what needs doing, or how much of it. We sorted the 164 five ways to find out.
Cheapest: 98 Glantawe Street, Morriston, £20,000
Three bedrooms, vacant for years, going to online auction on 9 September through Property Auction Agent.
There are no internal viewings because of the condition. It sells strictly as seen, with all remaining furniture, belongings and contents left in situ on completion. The agents describe it as a comprehensive renovation project for experienced investors, developers and cash buyers.
Most expensive: Kiln Bank, Horton, £900,000
A detached six-bedroom house 300 metres from the beach, with The Greenroom, believed to have been the coach station for the Coach and Horses route across Gower.
The three stone barns behind it run to about 1,589sqft and still hold the original stable bays and the coachman’s office. Some of the other outbuildings are dilapidated. Council tax is band H, £4,286 a year.
The house is no showpiece either. There is plaster off the wall beside the sitting room fireplace, marks across a bedroom wall, and a pine kitchen on quarry tiles. The agents say it offers significant scope for modernisation and reconfiguration.
What £900,000 buys is the setting. Several rooms look out across Port Eynon Bay.
Newest listing: Alexandra Terrace, Brynmill, £250,000
Three bedrooms and a loft room, a short walk from Brynmill Park, with Dawsons.
This is where the label starts to look elastic. The listing describes the house as presented in good condition and ready to move straight into, while offering the next owner the opportunity to update it over time.
The photographs show a fitted white kitchen, a decorated loft conversion and original cornicing above the stairs. It carries the same tag as the Morriston house nobody can go inside.
Biggest reduction: Llewelyn Street, Sketty, £170,000
A two-bedroom semi with Dawsons, reduced on 3 June, and ranked by Zoopla as the most reduced of Swansea’s needs-modernisation listings.
It is a probate sale, offered chain free, and the agents describe it as requiring modernisation and a blank canvas. Two reception rooms, gas central heating and double glazing, a short walk from Sketty Cross.
The photographs show a house frozen in an earlier decade: the galley kitchen in its original units, staining across one bedroom wall.
Zoopla’s home of the week: 32 Summerland Lane, Newton, £375,000
A three-bedroom detached bungalow with The Greenroom, reduced on 30 July and offered with no chain.
About 1,039sqft with a garage, driveway and conservatory, in a village a mile from Mumbles. Its EPC rating is F, the worst of the five, which for a single-storey home usually means heating bills before anything cosmetic.
Nothing here is broken. The kitchen is fitted, the shower room works, the furniture is still in place. What it needs is updating rather than rescuing, and the pink tiled bathroom is the clearest sign of it.
What it adds up to
The gap between the Morriston terrace and the Brynmill one is £230,000, and the same two words are doing the work on both listings.
For buyers, the filter is a starting point rather than a shortlist. For Swansea, a headline ranking says rather less about the state of the city’s housing than it first appears.
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