Time travel back to the beginning of 2015 and try to remember what you were doing and you probably won't be able to recall much, but Martin Roberts, presenter of BBC's popular daytime property programme Homes Under The Hammer will find it easy - he was visiting and being filmed at a Welsh house that he just couldn't understand.
Arriving at the front door of the mid-terrace Victorian house with a sea view and easy access to the gorgeous countryside and coastline of north Wales, Martin is very confused - why did this four-storey, five bed house go to auction with a guide price of just £55,000?
It might have been at a time before the Covid pandemic when property prices were at a lower level, but even back in 2015 it seemed too good to be true.
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Martin really couldn't believe the price, saying it was a snip for such a big property, and then he finds a damp wall and exclaims: "Oh good, at last, something that might justify the price; a terribly damp wall!"
As well as the damp, the house was once a care home so the layout needed reconfiguring, it needed change of use and planning permission for a future as residential accommodation, and from the rear garden you could hear the A55 traffic.
But the house in the village of Penmaenmawr in the county of Conwy also had sweeping sea views from the upper floors and oodles of space that would lend itself to one huge home or a collection of multiple dwellings. See inside amazing Welsh homes as they hit the market by subscribing to our newsletter here.
Martin says: "Yeah, it needs a bit of sorting out but I've not seen anything really that justifies that guide price. I have seen a lot of properties in my time but this one has definitely got me in a state of shock!"
The house went to auction in December 2014, before Martin's visit to film inside, and was sold for £54,000 to local couple Neil and Ceri, who had appeared on the show before.
They knew their newly purchased house very well because they owned the one next door. The plan was to create two duplex apartments, one to rent out and one to maybe use as a rentable holiday let.
But from the start, the project brought a headache with it, the couple had the mortgage offer from the bank on the auction house reduced on the day of closing, which meant the renovation was delayed until they had completely finished next door to rent out and contribute to the renovation budget for its neighbour.
The show returned in 2018 to find out what had happened to this beast of a building and the answer was not a lot - the site was still very much a work in progress. But behind the scenes the couple had secured planning for a one-bed flat in the basement, a one-bed on the ground floor and a three-bed duplex on the upper two floors.
For the first 18 months of owning the property Neil and Ceri didn't do anything, concentrating on finishing next door, and then the next couple of years had passed with them having to fit the renovation of their auction property around their full-time jobs.
But going from the experience of renovating the property next door as a whole house to a property divided into flats meant more work and more budget, with features like fire alarms, sprinkler system, separate services and sound proofing to consider.
At this first catch-up visit from the Homes Under The Hammer crew in 2018, the couple were feeling weighed down by the project and Neil had some advice for viewers about doing a large, multi-dwelling renovation project.
He says: "Don't do it! Or possibly start smaller and build your way up because it's daunting, these are quite large properties." Ceri adds: "Many times we've walked in, looked at it, and walked home again!"
But the couple were buoyed at the time by discovering that they could apply to get a £75,000 interest free loan for the renovation via the local council's 'houses to homes' scheme, to be paid back within five years, as long as the completed dwellings were either sold or rented to local people.
So when the programme returned after almost eight long years to see the completed renovation project, were there three tenants living behind three front doors? No.
Plans had changed again and the flats were nowhere to be seen. Instead the house was now a fully renovated single dwelling after a back-to-brick, loft to basement full renovation which included the installation of a number of Juliet balconies to make the most of the sea view at the rear.
The house is fully furnished, so have the couple moved in or are they renting it out? Well, neither, it's going to be rented out as a single holiday let.
Neil explains: "As the works carried on and prices started to creep up and up, it was going to get to the point where we'd end up spending more than it was worth.
"Anyway, due to the delays and setbacks, we had a bit of time to think and in sitting back and contemplating it we decided to keep the place as a single house.
"So we had to pay back the £75,000 which is understandable - that's a given - but at the time we hadn't gone too far into ripping out staircases and stuff like that, so we could keep it as a single dwelling and carry on from there."
Ceri says: "A couple of the changes on the ground floor are based on the ground floor becoming a flat and the flow, I feel now, works better; it's more natural."
Layout changes include the former downstairs bathroom becoming the kitchen, a bedroom becoming the dining room with Juliet balcony and access to the new kitchen. The couple also worked into the new design a utility room and storage that the cleaners can use for the guest change over at the end of each rental period.
The house was built in the 1880s and Ceri says they wanted to keep as many of the original features as they could while adding some of their own personal interior design taste with a 'Victorian Gothic' inspiration.
Ceri has sourced much of the furniture and décor from local, independent businesses within a 25 miles radius to support the local community.
The clever couple have kept the care home's fire escape door and walkway from one of the top bedrooms and their neighbour Barry, who is a skilled craftsman, has constructed a balcony which is surely the best spot in the house for sea views.
The house might have taken eight years and a £150,000 budget to update but Martin thinks it was worth the wait. But more importantly what will a local estate agent think of the couple's £204,000 total investment?
The agent estimates a resale value of about £275,000 and the couple are pleased with the £71,000 pre tax profit, but the destiny of this house is as a holiday let and there's good news here too, with the agent suggesting charging £1,200 per week but also stating that it will not achieve 100% occupancy throughout the year.
The couple say based on the holiday let market in the area, local experts have quoted an income of between £35,000 and £42,000 per year which, if achieved, would result in a 17% to 20% yield on their investment, minus running costs and income tax.
The house has gone from care home to building site to large holiday let by the sea, ready to welcome its first guests and Neil and Ceri couldn't be happier to bring this property back to life - eventually.
This story was part of Homes Under The Hammer series 25, episode 78, currently available to view on BBC iPlayer.
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