Costs to refurbish a house in Athlone

SueDeNimes

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My wife and I are selling our home in the UK and returning to Westmeath to be closer to her mother. We are selling our home in the UK and buying a house in the Athlone area.

Unfortunately, there is not a huge amount of stock available. Neither of us drive which restricts us as well. I have been looking at some houses in central Athlone that would be quite a bit under our budget but in need to some pretty serious refurbishment. While I have an idea of costs in the UK, I have no idea of costs in somewhere like Athlone.

Can anyone give me any advice on ballpark figures for the following :

1) Total refurbishment of a house of roughly 100sqM
2) Rewiring said house
3) New kitchen and bathroom costs
4) Costs of redecorating to include painting, plastering and remedial work on areas of damage.

I know I am asking a lot but I am really just trying to figure out if we should even consider these sort of properties.
 
Be careful where you buy in Athlone. Do your research. There are some pretty dire areas near town centre and the college. Forewarned is forearmed!
 
Renovation costs do seem to be higher here than in the UK.

Is learning to drive on the cards for either of you?

Are either of you handy? Would you be able to do woodwork / painting type stuff?
 
You couldn’t pick a worse time to refurbish. I watch uk programmes and the costs there are so low they seem ridiculous.

There is an entire thread on here on rewriting costs.

Be careful that cheap estates mean undesirable estates.
 
You should seriously consider an apartment as most will be central to everything and i'm pretty sure good value can be found.
 
I would have thought that a bag of cement, roll of wire, pane of glass would be the same price nationwide?
 
Also be aware that significant renovations (affecting more than 25% of the surface envelope of the building ) commencing on or after November 1st must bring the energy rating of B2 or better.
 
"Of course you would, just like a pint, a hotel room, a concert, or a meal is as well"

One of the reasons why insuring a 2000 sq ft house in Dublin 4 viz-a-vis a 2000 sq ft house in Athlone will be the same is because the bag of cement, roll of wire and pane of glass will cost the same in Athlone and Dublin. It is the cost of the site/location that makes the buying cost of both houses different. Insurance companies base it's insurance value on it's rebuilding cost. I am not sure which county they use to benchmark this or maybe they just base it on a bag of cement from CRH......

I hope noproblem that you have not fallen in to the trap of insuring your house for it's location value rather than it's rebuilding value.
 
"Of course you would, just like a pint, a hotel room, a concert, or a meal is as well"

One of the reasons why insuring a 2000 sq ft house in Dublin 4 viz-a-vis a 2000 sq ft house in Athlone will be the same is because the bag of cement, roll of wire and pane of glass will cost the same in Athlone and Dublin. It is the cost of the site/location that makes the buying cost of both houses different.
You're way off the mark here.

It's not the same cost to insure.

You insure based in rebuild costs. It's cheaper to rebuild in Athlone than Dublin.
Yes, the cost of materials is the same, but the cost if labour is vastly different.

The chartered surveyors publish lots of data in this.

 
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