What’s sad is my tactic that worked five years ago - find a scabby flat and just live there till you can afford to do it up - no longer works. Too many flats needing a bit of TLC are snapped up by buy-to-let or flippers. So a 1 bed flat that was all nicotine yellow and going for 80,000 gets painted white and is suddenly on for offers over 150,000. It’s maddening.