How you CAN still climb the property ladder by doing up run-down homes… One family reveal tricks they used to flip their way from a £155,000 house to a £1million family home with a cinema room

A house filled with mould, asbestos and falling ceilings would be most homeowners’ worst nightmare.

But for Amy Fletcher, a house in terrible disrepair represents an unmissable opportunity.

The mother of two discovered she had a knack and passion for buying and doing up houses – known as ‘flipping’ – 12 years ago when she took on her first project at the age of 24.

Since then she has ‘rescued’ four family homes around Newport in South Wales. Each time she has used the profits to buy the next, slightly bigger house for her and her family to live in. And it has helped bag her the latest property – a family home worth close to £1million with a cinema room, gym and walk-in pantry.

Flipping homes used to be a well-worn path for families looking to climb the property ladder. But in recent years it’s become increasingly difficult as building costs have soared and house prices stagnated.

It’s no longer a given that renovating adds value. And planning applications are now at their lowest level in a decade – it seems the romance of a fixer-upper has faded.

But Amy’s success suggests that making a profit – or working up the property ladder by buying and flipping unloved homes – is still possible for those with a good eye and willingness to graft.

‘It’s never been about chasing profit – we love giving forgotten homes a second chance,’ says Amy, 36, who lived in each property with husband Sean, 37, a police officer, and their children Theo, eight, and Tilly, six.

‘Each one taught us something new, giving us the confidence to take on bigger projects.’

Amy and her family started in 2014, when they bought a three-bedroom home in Caerwent, Monmouthshire, for £155,000. It was dated and in desperate need of a new kitchen and bathroom.

‘We spent around £7,000 renovating it, completing 90 per cent of the work ourselves,’ says Amy. ‘Ripping out and installing the kitchen, laying new flooring throughout – we learnt everything as we went.’

The biggest costs were windows at £3,000, an Ikea kitchen at £1,500, bathroom £600, driveway £1,500 and decking £1,000.

‘One of the best decisions was adding a decked seating area at the bottom of the garden, which overlooked beautiful farmland,’ she says. ‘It completely transformed how the garden felt, maximising the property’s biggest asset – the view.’

The rule they’ve followed with every property since is to ‘buy the view,’ she says. ‘You can change almost everything about a house, but you can’t change what you see when you look out of the window. None of our homes have ever felt overlooked.’

They sold it for £225,000 in 2019, £70,000 more than they paid for it. But their first house taught them the importance of knowing when you have added as much value as you can to a property and when it’s time to move on to the next project.

‘It took five years to do up,’ says Amy. ‘We were floundering – yet also getting married and having a baby. We have since learnt to understand the ceiling price for your house, and once you’ve hit it, move. Don’t get sentimental.’

House two in Usk was an even bigger challenge. They bought the tired-looking 1970s four-bedroom detached home with an old tarmac driveway for £340,000 in 2019, and sold it for £460,000 in 2021.

They spent £20,000 on renovations: £4,000 on a resin driveway, £6,000 on oak-effect uPVC windows, £2,000 on bathrooms, £3,000 on carpeting, £1,500 for flooring and about £3,500 on an Indian sandstone patio and children’s play area.

‘Most people would have dismissed it before even stepping inside,’ says Amy. ‘But we had learnt how to put in laminate flooring, and used Lukas, our trusted tradesman, for worktop joinery and bathrooms, which look much better done by an expert.

‘It went from dated and unloved to classic contemporary.’

Property three was ‘particularly special’ – just a few doors away from her childhood home in Langstone. The couple bought the four-bedroom house for £500,000 in 2021 and sold it for £610,000 three years later. By this point, Amy had gained sufficient confidence to take on more of a challenge and so changed the layout of the 1990s home with its small, separate rooms.

‘Structural work created one large open-plan kitchen, dining and living space – which the whole family lived in while the rest was finished,’ says Amy.

One of her favourite tips is to spend money on the things you touch every day, such as worktops, taps, handles.

They spent £15,000 on a basic kitchen, but sourced quartz worktops and premium handles from independent retailers. They spent about £50,000 in total, of which £30,000 was building work, and sold the home for £110,000 more than they bought it for.

The latest project is the couple’s ‘biggest and most sentimental.’ Amy and Sean, who got together when they were teenagers, would walk past the 1920s four-bed detached house, discussing how someone might transform it.

When they happened to walk past it again in 2024, they saw it was in a bad state of disrepair as the elderly owner was in a care home. ‘We put a note through the door saying we’d be interested in buying. Two weeks later we got a note back to say it was in probate,’ says Amy.

Because it was in such a state, with mould, asbestos, a poorly built 1970s extension and no utilities, the couple negotiated the price down from £420,000 to £390,000.

They could not live in it while the work was done, so spent 18 months in a caravan in the garden. ‘We stayed optimistic, watching our new home double in size, and the children were excited to design their own rooms – they’ve learnt a lot of life skills!‘

She has project-managed the £300,000 renovation of the six-bedroom detached home that soon looks set to be worth about £1million. ‘It’s probably not our forever home – but we are not moving on in a rush this time,’ says Amy.

Follow Amy’s progress on Instagram @ourlittlewelshview. Get tickets for the Homebuilding & Renovating Show this weekend at Excel www.homebuildingshow.co.uk/mos