It has become public knowledge that Homes Under The Hammer presenter Martin Roberts has fallen in love with Wales, and particularly the Rhondda Valleys having spent a vast amount of time filming in the area for the popular BBC daytime property programme.
Martin's links to the region have grown stronger since buying a farmhouse, the oldest in the Rhondda Valley, and updating it into a pretty Airbnb, find out more about that here, as well as becoming the patron of The Rhondda Tunnel Society.
In 2022 Martin found himself 'accidentally' buying the closed down Hendrewen Hotel and pub in Blaencwm at the top of the Rhondda Fawr valley. He explained in an interview with WalesOnline that his plans for the future of the pub includes ploughing around half a million pounds of his own money into developing it into a gastro pub, accommodation and information centre as a support to the development of tourism around the area and, hopeful, the reopening of the Rhondda Tunnel- read more about that here.
It is safe to say that Martin loves Wales, so when he was recently filming for HUTH in the Rhondda Fawr valley he couldn't help himself and snuck off to enjoy a walk through the valley's landscape, gushing to viewers about the joys of the area - nice one Martin.
He said: "Sometimes, you know, I think we forget just how lucky we are with the scenery and the countryside that we've got here in the UK. I mean, look at this! This could be Austria, Switzerland, New Zealand but it's not - it's the Rhondda Valley in south Wales and it is spectacular!". Well said Martin.
Anyway, Martin was there to do a job and his main task was to explore a three-bed, mid-terrace in Treherbert going to auction with a guide price of just £27,000. Inside the house had been taken back to brick and some plastering had already been done.
A traditional layout of front reception room, rear reception room leading to the kitchen, and then into a downstairs bathroom was no surprise for Martin, as well as the three bedrooms upstairs.
But the area of the house that grabbed Martin was the view from a quirky rear vestibule area next to a tired lean-to, looking out over his beloved Rhondda Fawr valley. He exclaimed: "Wow! Look at the view, absolutely fantastic! I wonder if you could build some kind of a deck here, some of the neighbours have done that. It's absolutely beautiful!"
A set of rather unstable looking stone steps then led Martin down into the garden which was masquerading as a junkyard and down here, in the small rear garden, Martin spotted a surprise bonus to the house, hidden away under the property.
As the house occupied an elevated position on the side of the hill it had a secret, dark and somewhat spooky basement lurking underneath it - an extra area to use at the very least for storage once doors were fitted to provide security.
The house sold for £57,00 to plasterer Darren and his son Louis , who was going to help with the work, but it was definitely not a local purchase - the pair lived over 170 miles away in Portsmouth.
So why this part of Wales for a property purchase, Martin asked Darren. "It's lovely and quiet and it's very scenic and I've got a mate who lives in the village and he told me about it," Darren replied.
"He said 'go for it' and he gave me the big thumbs up. There's fresh air, lots of walking and friendly people." Sounds like the Rhondda Fawr valley has cast its enchantment spell over Darren, as well as Martin.
The plan was a full renovation of the house while living in it for a few weeks at a time before returning to Portsmouth to keep the costs down. Darren had big plans to build a six foot veranda out of the back of the house to make the most of the view as well as the full top to bottom update.
Darren said he had a budget of £10,000 and a timescale of three months - 'that's the maximum' he stated very firmly. And over 14 months later and much work had been done, even though it has taken a long time to do it.
There's new flooring, new electrics upstairs, decorated throughout, new kitchen and bathroom, and new boiler and, of course, new plastering. One change completed but not expected was incorporating the lean-to vestibule area into the kitchen to create a spacious kitchen diner flooded with light from a roof window.
The hazardous stone garden steps have been replaced by a new metal set, but one change not completed was the odd basement area under the house accessed via the garden.
On the return visit the spooky basement didn't even have security doors installed, although Darren still had plans to tank it out and make it usable accommodation in the future, and there was no six foot veranda either.
The main challenge for Darren was the distance between home and house coupled with the significant amount of plastering jobs required by clients in Portsmouth eating into his Welsh renovation time. Plus a problem with the roof that resulted in water ingress occurring between their visits and the resulting damage that had to be rectified.
The budget spent came to around £7k so with the agent coming back to the property valuing it at £95,000 Darren made a pre-tax profit of £31,000 as he flipped the house. The agent stated a rental of £550 per calendar month and a tenant has already been found at that price, giving Darren a yield of around 10%. No wonder Darren said he's happy with the project.
The Rhondda valley has worked its magic on him and he's now living in the area in a house that he is upgrading at the same time, echoing Martin's affection for the location and a growing bond with the local people as well as the local properties.
This story was included in series 26, episode 23 which is currently available to view on BBC iPlayer.
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