GEORGE WOULDN’T BUY IT !
NICE HOUSE. WRONG PRICE.
It’s immaculate.
New kitchen.
Fresh bathroom.
Perfect flooring.
Instagram-ready from top to bottom.
I still wouldn’t buy it.
Why?
Because you can renovate a house.
You cannot renovate the ceiling price of the street.
If similar properties are selling around £180,000 and somebody has spent a fortune turning theirs into a £230,000 masterpiece, that doesn’t automatically make it worth £230,000.
That expensive kitchen?
The market might not care.
Those premium tiles?
Lovely. But they don’t move the postcode.
And if you’re buying as an investor, paying a premium because somebody else has already done all the work can wipe out most of your opportunity before you’ve even picked up the keys.
A beautiful property can still be a bad buy.
I’m not interested in whether I like the kitchen.
I’m interested in whether the numbers make sense.
🏡 Nice house.
❌ George wouldn’t buy it.
GEORGE WOULDN’T BUY IT!
GREAT YIELD. TERRIBLE PROPERTY.
“IT’S GOT A 12% YIELD!”
Great.
What’s wrong with it?
Because a big yield figure on a spreadsheet doesn’t automatically make something a good investment.
Maybe the maintenance is horrific.
Maybe tenants constantly change.
Maybe the area attracts high management costs.
Maybe the property has damp, roofing problems, old electrics, ancient plumbing and a boiler that looks like it served in the war.
Maybe that 12% yield only exists because the purchase price is low for a very good reason.
Yield tells me one thing.
It doesn’t tell me whether I actually want to own the property.
If the numbers only work while absolutely nothing goes wrong…
the numbers don’t work.
💰 Impressive yield.
❌ George wouldn’t buy it.
GEORGE WOULDN’T BUY IT!
IT’S CHEAP FOR A REASON.
£40,000 below similar houses nearby?
Now you’ve got my attention.
But you haven’t got my money.
Because one of the most expensive sentences in property is:
“It only needs a bit of work.”
A bit of work can become:
Roof.
Damp.
Drainage.
Electrics.
Boiler.
Windows.
Structural movement.
Planning issues.
Japanese knotweed.
A title problem nobody noticed.
And suddenly your “bargain” is swallowing £60,000.
Cheap doesn’t excite me.
Unexplained cheap worries me.
There absolutely are brilliant below-market opportunities out there.
But the opportunity is in understanding why it’s cheap.
Not simply celebrating the asking price.
🏚️ Cheap property.
💣 Potentially expensive problem.
❌ George wouldn’t buy it… until he knew exactly what he was buying.
GEORGE WOULDN’T BUY IT!
STUNNING KITCHEN. AWFUL HOUSE.
£30,000 kitchen.
Massive island.
Integrated everything.
Spotlights everywhere.
And nowhere sensible to put a dining table.
I still wouldn’t buy it.
People get distracted by finishes.
I look at how the house actually works.
Can you get from the kitchen to the garden without walking through three rooms?
Is there enough storage?
Does the extension make the rest of the ground floor dark?
Can furniture actually fit where furniture needs to go?
Has somebody created an enormous kitchen but destroyed the family living space?
Because you know what costs more than replacing a kitchen?
Trying to fix a terrible layout.
Pretty sells photographs.
Practical sells lifestyles.
✨ Gorgeous kitchen.
🤦 Terrible flow.
❌ George wouldn’t buy it.
GEORGE WOULDN’T BUY IT!
HUGE GARDEN. WHO CARES?
Before somebody comes for me…
I’m not saying big gardens are bad.
I’m saying this:
Something is only a selling point if your buyer actually wants it.
Huge garden.
Fantastic.
Who are we selling to?
A young professional who wants low maintenance?
A landlord whose tenant now has half an acre to ignore?
An older buyer who doesn’t want to spend every weekend cutting grass?
Or a family desperate for outside space?
Exactly.
Property decisions get expensive when people assume:
“I love it, therefore everybody will love it.”
They won’t.
The same applies to:
Swimming pools.
Cinema rooms.
Massive extensions.
Four-car garages.
Hot tubs.
Ultra-modern interiors.
Acres of land.
Sometimes they add serious appeal.
Sometimes they massively reduce your buyer pool.
Before I get excited about a feature, I want to know:
Who is actually going to pay more for it?
🌳 Amazing garden.
🤷 Wrong buyer.
❌ George wouldn’t buy it.