Thanks mate. Got pressured in to buying then everyone bailed and I do feel a bit over my head
Mistake buying when pressured!
100% don't paint it I got two properties with painted pebble dash and every 3-4 years we repainting them and now that Elf & Safety involved most won't do it off a ladder so you got the added cost of scaffolding. Takes a £800-1200 paint job to being 2-3x the cost.
You can paint it your self but then your always responsible chip it all off get someone to re-dash or silicone render it and it will be good for 20 years with no maintenance which means it better on your returns longer term. Unless that house was a rental before you might have to upgrade the fuse board which is a cost in its self, put the money into a better boiler with a service contract and so on.
I get fed up of doing it. So this summer its coming off and I'm either re-rendering it or putting insulation back first and then having a self cleaning silicone render or whatever it is applied.
It's a larger cost but longer term better for the property energy rating, better for the tenant and less maintain which is better for me.
IF it's going to be a longer term goal buying and renting and leveraging id also rent a storage locker like a 8x10 or 12x14 or even a shipping container for £80-120 a month. Then you want to get on John Pye Auctions or similar and when the bathroom stuff comes up (normally this time of year) start buying sinks, toilets, fixtures, fittings and so on.
Get another unit and snap up free shit off Facebook marketplace or at Too Good to Waste type events and store plates, mattresses, pillows etc and even a sofa or tv and offer the house as furnished or unfurnished (as you got a place to store it) tenants are ANIMALS it's handy to have a supply of taps, shower curtains etc try and make all your properties standard so you an swap things out easy.
It's a pain but you can beat inflation on things like copper pipe (I've had a cunt rip out pipes when they left!) if you just going to have 1 or 2 houses there's not much point doing that once you get into double figures it saves you so much money.