Free calculator
Property refurb cost calculator
In the full PropDetect product, refurb costs are priced from the listing photos themselves: every room is classified, each element (units, worktops, suites, walls, floors, electrics) is judged keep, refresh or replace, and priced from a rate card calibrated against real builder quotes, then scaled by a regional cost index. This calculator is the manual version of that engine, using the same rates, so the number you get here agrees with what a trial shows you. The difference is that the product looks at the actual property; here, you are the one judging the condition.
Refurb cost calculator
Treat this as a planning range of roughly £14,142 to £17,285: a calculator cannot see the property. The product prices the same categories from the actual listing photos, room by room, which is where the estimate tightens up.
How the estimate is built
The calculator prices six categories the way the product does. Decorating is quoted on combined wall and ceiling area (about 2.7 times the floor area): a refresh is two coats of trade emulsion at £8 per square metre, a full job is a plaster skim plus paint at £32. Flooring runs £15 to £30 per floor square metre depending on whether existing floors survive. The kitchen is priced per linear metre of unit run, £430 a metre to refresh doors, worktops and splashbacks or £1,150 a metre for trade-tier replacement. A bathroom refresh (new seals, taps, seat, screen) is about £580; a full replacement with suite, tiling and waterproof flooring lands around £3,600. Electrics scale per room from new faceplates to circuit rework, and medium and full levels carry an EPC and heating allowance.
Two rules from the product apply here unchanged. Every estimate carries a 15% contingency, always, because something you cannot see in any photo set will need fixing. And regional pricing happens once at the end: the same works cost roughly 36% more in inner London and 15% less in the cheapest northern labour markets, so the calculator applies the same BCIS-anchored regional index the pipeline uses rather than pretending one national price exists.
What a calculator cannot see
The honest limit of any refurb calculator is that condition is a judgement about a specific property, not a property type. A dated but clean bathroom prices very differently from a damaged one, a fuse-wire consumer unit in one hallway photo can add a rewire, and a roofline with slipped tiles adds scaffolding the moment the roof work passes about £1,500. That is why the ranges here should be treated as planning numbers, and why the product reads the photos instead of asking you to pick a level.
- Kitchens and bathrooms dominate: a property needing both replaced is never a light refurb
- Add scaffolding money whenever roof, chimney or high-level render work appears
- Damp, structural movement and rewires are survey findings, not photo findings; keep the contingency for them
- Price the end product for the street: a rental-grade finish and an owner-occupier finish are different budgets
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is a refurb estimate from photos?
Good enough to sort deals, not good enough to instruct a builder. Room-by-room photo pricing with calibrated rates typically lands within 10 to 15% of quoted cost on cosmetic and medium refurbs, which is what you need at appraisal stage. Structural and hidden works (damp, roof timbers, rewires behind fresh paint) only surface in a survey, which is what the 15% contingency is for.
What does a full refurb cost per square foot in the UK?
Published 2025 ranges put a mid-spec full refurb around £1,700 to £1,800 per square metre of build cost in England, roughly £160 to £170 per square foot, with inner London 30 to 40% above that and the cheapest northern markets 15% below. Light cosmetic work is a fraction of that, which is why a single per-square-foot rate is a poor pricing tool: the mix of works matters more than the area.
When do you need scaffolding on a refurb?
Whenever the work leaves ladder height: roof repairs beyond a couple of tiles, chimney work, gutters and fascias across a full elevation, render repairs above the ground floor. The product adds a scaffolding allowance automatically once chargeable roof work passes about £1,500, and one scaffold serves all the high-level jobs, so batch them.
Should I always add a contingency?
Yes, and 15% is the number this calculator and the product both use. It is not padding; on any refurb priced before opening walls and floors, something will not be visible in the photos or even the viewing. If the project finishes without touching the contingency, it becomes profit.
Why does the region change the price so much?
Labour. Materials cost roughly the same nationally, but tradesman day rates in London run 20 to 40% above the national average and the cheapest urban markets sit 15% below it. The regional index here is anchored to the BCIS regional cost indices and published day-rate data, the same anchoring the product uses.
Want this run automatically on any Rightmove listing?
PropDetect runs these numbers, and the rest of the deal, on every listing that matches your criteria: refurb costs from the photos, comparable sold valuations, rent, GDV and a strong, solid or avoid verdict across six strategies. You just read the result.
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