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Whitstable is famous for its oysters, shingle beaches and colourful beach huts. Martin said property prices in the area are higher than other parts of Kent. The property Martin was viewing was located 10 minutes away from Whitstable in Chestfield. The home was located on a quiet, residential street and had an auction guide price of £550,000.
The massive house had four bedrooms, a large garden and was detached offering buyers a huge amount of space.
This was the first time the home was being sold after being built so there was a lot of dated decor inside.
Martin said: “I’m getting a real kind of 70s feel about the place. You’ve got a downstairs loo there and through into the kitchen. It’s a really well-proportioned house.
“A very dated kitchen but a really nice size. And then, through into a pretty spectacular living space.”
The living room had a small fireplace and patio doors leading out into the large garden. Upstairs, there was a large landing and four large bedrooms.
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There was also a terrace leading off from the landing along with a bathroom in “reasonable condition”.
The property had a lot of cracks but Martin didn’t think any of them looked as though they could be signs of a structural problem.
The garden was enormous and could offer the new owner a unique opportunity to build new homes.
Martin said: “You could just keep it as a garden. You could think about building some kind of extension on the side of what is already quite a big house.
“What I’m thinking is, could this bit of garden be turned into a building plot? I think it’d be very easy to get some kind of access to the road.
“It’s way big enough to have a really good-sized house and a garden without taking away too much from the garden of this property.
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“And, if you were to put a house on here or even just get outline planning permission through for the development of a property, suddenly this bit of garden goes from being worth what it is right now – £2,000 – to probably 100 times that. You get planning on this, you could get £200,000 [for it] easy.”
The property was bought by husband and wife team Steven and Kate in May 2021 who had a winning bid of £586,000.
The couple bought it as their third development project for their company which they have set up with another business partner, Ben.
Steven was a city trader in IT and has run a number of companies but he has now turned his hand to property development.
Steven and Kate had engineers, surveyors and architects look at the property and were planning to have three detached properties built on the plot.
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To do this, they would knock down the original home to create three four-bedroom homes with two bathrooms that will look like other homes in the area.
The couple had a £900,000 budget and planned to construct the homes in just 18 months.
Homes Under the Hammer returned 14 months later to see the couple’s progress. The old house was gone and the properties were still in progress.
The couple decided to go for two homes, not three, as that was the best option financially.
Planning permission for the homes did go through without too many issues. However, it took nearly three months to get the consent for the two houses.
Steven explained what the homes would look like once they were completed. He said: “Each house has got four bedrooms and each has two bathrooms.
“So an ensuite bathroom and one bathroom between three bedrooms. “Come through the front door and basically you’ve got a toilet cloakroom on the right and a kitchen back right.
“And then on the left-hand side, you’ve got the living room and on the right-hand side you’ve also got a sort of family/snug/office area.”
These houses have been designed with the executive market in mind, so they’ve tried to maximise the space of the home and kept the outside space to a more manageable size but with plenty of parking.
Stephen was hoping they would be completed in four months’ time but now thinks it will probably be nearer to six months as we move towards winter.
The homes would look “contemporary” and “very much on trend” once completed while also being high quality.
The build costs so far have come to around £650,000. They plan to finish with a projected spend of £730,000, according to Steven.
When you add that £730,000 to the £600,000 they bought the original home for, you get a £1.35million total spend.
A local estate agent visited the plot and viewed the plans in August 2022 to determine how much profit the couple could make.
The agent said the houses should achieve around £780,000, depending on the finish and market conditions.
Steven thought they should sell for £780,000 at a “minimum” and £840,000 “maximum”.
If Steven managed to sell the homes for £780,000 each, he would see a potential pre-tax profit of over £200,000.
Homes Under the Hammer is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
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