This week we're upping sticks and moving to Nottingham and search for a change of lifestyle and a bargain to boot. There were two ways to get more fuel money when buying property. You can move to a cheaper area. Or you can buy something that needs a lot of work. This week our buyer and tonight intends to do both. Antoinette's a social worker who's been living in London for almost 20 years. We're going to use our house hunting skills to try and help her move back to her hometown of Nottingham. Lower property prices here mean she may finally afford the home. She's been dreaming of. The kind of property I'm looking for is something with space, lots and lots of space. I have lots of interests. I do woodwork, I do room-the-therapy massage. So I'd like a place that's big enough to incorporate those two things. I'm probably going to have a lodger staying with me. So I need space for that. I'd like a seller. And a really large kitchen diner. That's what the thing that I'm most looking forward to having. In terms of the budget, my maximum budget is about 90,000. That would be just comfortable for me. Lacemaking and textiles brought money into Nottingham 200 years ago. But now it's retail and cafe culture that's putting the city back on the style map. But you can still get a lot of your money in Nottingham. In some areas you can pick up a three-bedroom house for as little as £40,000. A housing boom of the late Victorian period means there's now a wealth of red brick, terraced homes on the market. And to make her money go even further, Antoinette's not averse to taking on a place that needs work. Antoinette is nice to meet you. Hi, good to see you. Hi, Phil. How'd you do? No, we're here. You're all into knocking down walls. Absolutely. I'm happy to take a sledgehammer to a few walls, yeah. We know that space is one of your major requirements. Do you think you can get enough space in Nottingham for your budget? I'm confident that I'll be able to get as much space as I need. I need quite a lot of space. But yeah, I'm pretty optimistic. I'll get what I want. That's what we like to hear. Antoinette's keen to live as close to the city centre as possible. So we're starting our search in New Baskford just 15 minutes away. This Victorian mid-terrest house in Mandalay Street has three bedrooms. It's on the market for just under £70,000, £20,000 below budget. Here we are. Straight enough the street. I hope that's a problem. It's not something I'm very keen on, I must say. It's not ideal, but it is a feature of money notting terraced houses. Some of them we're going to come across. It's a nice decent size room, no? I think it could be bigger, because I think that I would actually have a sofa in here in this recessed area and perhaps the TV in that corner. They haven't used the space as well as they might. Now this was my favourite room of the house. I like the brick. I love the brick, actually. That's the old fireplace, which they've ripped up. If you see the curve of the mud, it's rather clever. Right, the old house. The fireplace may be long gone, but it means there's more space. But is there enough space for Antonette? I guess the layout isn't what I was expecting. I guess I had a slightly bigger kitchen, diner area. Ah, so the kitchen's big, but not big enough. But she does like the cellar which has plenty of room for her woodwork. And the house has other hidden advantages. Nottingham is having a new tram link, and one of the routes passes just by the end of the road here. Now in other cities that have had new transportation systems like Sheffield and Manchester, property prices along the route have outperformed the market. So we think this is a really good investment opportunity. So up here Antonette, there are two decent size double rooms. But the thing that makes this the master bedroom is the master bathroom. Wow, that is generous. It's very generous. It is, very orange, very generous. We've got to the top of the house. And, uh-huh. Wow. If you thought downstairs was bright, then this one will surprise you up here. Yeah, certainly very bright. We thought it was the room that you might be able to rent. If you wanted to have a lodger, just to help initially with the mortgage repayments. Yeah. Having looked up down the whole house, turns your general opinion. It's much bigger than I would have thought. You know, stepped off the street, reasonable size living room, but it keeps going on and on and on. It's a very sort of tall house. There is a feeling of space, which is something I really wanted. So I like it from that point of view. But Antonette's still dreaming of a grander kitchen diner. Let's see if we can find it in our second property. The Howard is a fashionable area, just a mile from the city centre, where prices are starting to soar. This Victorian terrace with three bedrooms is slightly above Antonette's budget at just under £92,000. Will this be the open plan living space and kitchen Antonette looking for? Here we are. So this time we've got a proper hallway. Uh-huh. No straight into the system room. Oh, shh. Silence room. Mmm, nice brick. Again, very nice. I really like that. Big dining area. Yes. This room feels very separate, though. I suppose in my head I was thinking of one very large room. I suppose this would all have to stay. So there's an structural. No. No. No. Oh, right. It certainly could be opened up. You need to leave a foot in the side. Uh-huh. But you can make this a lot wider. Like a really one big room. I guess that's what I'm after. I should have said I'm being a bit greedy, but you know, I guess you must have. But this is what we've got to us, Tamarys. How are you going to use each of your rooms for your different uses? You've got three bedrooms upstairs. You're looking for the mass-hards place, the woodwork place, the eating place, the sitting place, the cooking place, the sleeping place, the lodging place. So we've got quite a lot of uses. Yeah, it's a lot going on there, isn't there? Don't you think so? Don't you think so? And this house does seem to have it all, there's room for the lodger with easy access to the spacious bathroom and an impressive master bedroom. It is really, really nice. This beautiful floor, really nice decor. I really like it, it's got a good size to it. Nice big window, yeah. I like this room. But will the kitchen be an issue again? I'm still thoughtful about having a really large kitchen diner and I did wonder whether it was possible to do anything with this space here just to kind of maybe some kind of extension coming from this area. The simple way of telling whether it is possible is standing back and looking at neighbouring houses. Right. And lo and behold, that's exactly what they've done there. Yes. You need to remember to leave light to travel into this room. So either a light well in here or you've glass roofed the whole thing. Either way, it makes a very nice kitchen. So what's the verdict? I like the house. It has some amazingly good rooms. I think the very top room in the room below, both very big. I don't think you could ask for more space really. But will the plans for a bigger kitchen blow out into its budget? No risk of that at our next location, Snanterns, where Antoinette used to live. It's being heavily regenerated, meaning prices look set to take off. This terrace house is a real investment opportunity. Three bedrooms and the asking price is just £49,000. But there is a good reason. Come in and see what you make of this hand for that. Goodness. We're in Snantern, which is, we know, is one of your preferred areas. Yes, it is. This house, very basic state, but it's on the market at £49,000. We've really brought you here to assess how you feel about this level of work. It's pretty cosmetic work. Yeah, it doesn't faze me. It doesn't faze me at all. She's right not to be put off. The house looks worse than it really is. Now, you see that that's a brand new light. The ceiling's been mostly stripped. The far place has been stripped. It's a new one, I'm not entirely sure. It's quite neat, doesn't it? The back of the work has been broken. New pipes. New radiators. This kind of stuff is the difficult stuff and it's already been done. At less than 50 grand, this house is well below budget. And we think that the work needed will cost less than £10,000. Antoinette can do it up in her own taste and when prices in the area rise, she'll reap the rewards. The last house we went to, which had upstairs, had all this bits, not to worry, we did make the room seem bigger. Yeah. But that might be an unnecessary expense for not much added value. Yeah. There may be scope to improve the layout, but the house does feel smaller than anything we've seen so far. Well, there we go, Antoinette. That's what you get. 49,000. Yes. Yes. My impressions. I don't know. The arrangement of the rooms is the main concern. What that's needed doesn't put me off at all, but I'm just wondering how I'm going to manage to have those separate rooms, the different functions. How much of a pool would it be to come back to this area? There is a pool. I have some very nice times here. It's a long time to go, but I did have some nice times here. But, you know, I'm fairly pragmatic about this. It's the house, really. The house has got to be right. So the layout won't work for Antoinette here, but the state of the house hasn't scared her.