How to Find Houses That Need Renovation: On Rightmove & Zoopla

Type "renovation" into a property portal and you get a mixed bag. Some listings are genuine projects. Some say "recently renovated". Some say "no renovation needed". A keyword search matches the word, not the state of the house, and that is the first thing to understand about finding a renovation property for sale online.

The help pages Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket publish do not describe a filter for houses that need work. Rightmove and Zoopla each give you a keyword tool, and the two behave differently. OnTheMarket gives you a natural-language search instead. Learn what each one actually does, set an alert on each, and you have a repeatable way to find fixer upper houses for sale without checking three websites every morning. Auctions and off-market approaches are the other two routes, and both come later on this page.

Article updated: September 2026

All of this is about finding the house. Costing the work and paying for it are different jobs, and they start after the search has done its bit.

Understanding Renovation Projects: Setting Your Scope

"Needs renovation" covers a lot of ground. At one end is a tired house that wants a kitchen, a bathroom and decorating. At the other is a shell with a roof problem and no heating. Both get called a project in a listing, and both turn up in the same keyword search.

Deciding roughly what you are after before you search saves a lot of scrolling. The wording you search for changes with the scope. "Would benefit from updating" and "in need of complete renovation" are different phrases to try, and neither one tells you what the house actually needs.

Scope also sets the price band you search in. If you know what a finished three-bed sells for on your patch, a search capped some way below that number is one way of surfacing the ones that are not finished. It is a rough filter that needs local knowledge to set.

How Do Renovation Types Compare?

Three kinds of project turn up in a portal search.

Light refurbishment. Dated décor, an old kitchen, a bathroom from another decade. Phrases such as "requires modernisation" or "would benefit from updating" are the kind of wording to search for here.

Structural renovation. Roof, damp, movement, rewiring, an extension or a change of layout. "In need of complete renovation" or "requires full refurbishment" are the phrases to try. A listing cannot tell you the state of the roof or the wiring.

Buy, refurbish, refinance. The same houses as above, bought with a plan to refinance after the work. The search is identical. What changes is everything after the offer, and that lives on the buy refurb refinance page rather than here.

Whichever type you are after, the listing is a starting point, not evidence. A phrase in a description is the agent's shorthand. A short photo set is a short photo set. Neither tells you what the house needs or what it is worth, and the search tools below cannot tell you either. All they do is get the right listings in front of you faster.

How to Find the Best Renovation Projects Across the UK

A property to renovate shows up in three places: on the portals, in an auction catalogue, or direct from the owner before it is marketed. The portals are the route you can use tonight without an auction catalogue or a letter campaign, so most of this page is about them. Auctions come in Step 3. Off market property is the direct route, and it is a different job with its own page.

Property renovation listings sit on the same portals as everything else, so how to find fixer upper homes, a property with potential or a full rebuild comes down to the same three steps. Search each portal properly, using its own search tool. Set alerts so new renovation properties for sale come to you. Then read the auction catalogues as a separate stream.

Step 1: Finding Renovation Properties on Rightmove and Zoopla

Rightmove renovation properties and Zoopla fixer upper listings are found the same way, with keywords, but the two tools do different things with them. Here is what each portal's search tool actually does, taken from the portals' own help pages.

Rightmove. Keyword Sort takes up to three keywords and moves the listings that match them to the top of your results. It is a sort, not a filter. Houses that do not match are still in the list, further down. The standard version runs on desktop, mobile web and the Android app. The iOS app has an AI version that ranks by how many of your keywords a listing matches, and Rightmove itself says the AI can miss the context needed to make a match. The detail is on Rightmove's Keyword Sort page.

Zoopla. Open Filters on the website and there is a Keywords box. Separate terms with commas, put a phrase in quotes, and put a minus sign in front of a word to exclude it. Zoopla matches the words in the listing description, which cuts both ways. A minus sign in front of "renovated" drops every listing whose description uses that word, finished houses and part-done projects alike, and a finished house described in other words stays in. "Renovation" still matches "no renovation needed". A human read finishes the job. The app path is different from the website. Zoopla's keyword search guide has the steps.

OnTheMarket. Its guide does not describe a keyword box. What it offers, according to OnTheMarket's own guide from August 2026, is a natural-language search where you type a sentence, the usual filters, a map where you draw your own search area, a wish list and alerts. Typing "house in need of renovation" plus your area is worth a go. The guide mentions no renovation flag, so what comes back still depends on how each agent described the house.

On Rightmove and Zoopla, these are the phrases to try in the keyword box, one or two at a time. On OnTheMarket the same phrases go into the natural-language search as part of a sentence. They are examples of wording agents use for houses that need work:

• "In need of modernisation"
• "Requires updating throughout"
• "Renovation project"
• "In need of renovation"
• "Property with potential"
• "Would benefit from updating"

These are examples, not a complete list, and none of them proves the house behind the listing needs work. Different agents use different words, and a genuine project can be listed with none of these phrases in it. The keyword search finds a batch. Your own read of each listing does the rest.

The photos work the same way. A listing with two external shots and a one-line description is worth opening. It might be a project. It might be an agent in a hurry. A short photo set is a prompt to look, not proof of anything, and the same goes for an overgrown garden or tired paintwork in the pictures.

If you want the smaller sites as well as the big three, the property portals uk guide runs through them.

Step 2: Setting Up Smart Property Alerts

Checking three portals every day does not last. Alerts do the checking for you, and each portal sets them up slightly differently.

Rightmove needs a free account. Run the search you want, sign in, and use the "create alert" button on the results. You pick the frequency: Instantly, Daily, Every 3 days or Every 7 days. Alerts go to the email address on your Rightmove account. Steps are on Rightmove's property alerts page.

Zoopla also needs you signed in. On the website, run your search and choose Create email alert. The window that opens is where you set the frequency and save. A saved search can carry an alert as well, with the frequency set there. On the app you save the search first and then choose the notification options. Zoopla's saved searches guide covers both routes.

OnTheMarket describes property alerts that notify you when new listings match your criteria. Its guide, linked in Step 1, is the place for the current steps.

Two habits make alerts work. Set one alert per postcode district rather than one wide search, so the price band fits each area. And send them somewhere you actually look, whether that is a separate address or a folder you open at a set time, daily or weekly. An alert you skim on the day it lands is the whole point.

Step 3: Finding Renovation Properties at Auction

Auction lots are a separate stream of houses that need renovation for sale, and before you go near one it matters which kind of auction it is, because the two work differently.

One auctioneer, iamsold, sets the two types out plainly in its auction explainer. In its traditional, unconditional auction, the winning bid means immediate exchange of contracts, with completion typically in 28 days. In its Modern Method, a conditional auction, the winning bidder pays a non-refundable reservation fee and then has a 56-day window to complete, counted from receipt of draft contracts. iamsold footnotes that 56-day figure as based on standard freehold properties from the point the draft contract is issued. Other auctioneers set their own terms, so the conditions for the specific lot are the ones that count.

On iamsold's description of its own two formats, the practical difference is that its conditional auction does not mean you have exchanged when the hammer falls, while its traditional one does. In both, money is on the line once the bidding ends: an exchanged contract in one, a non-refundable reservation fee in the other. The lot's own conditions say exactly what you are committing to.

Checking Houses That Need Renovation

A listing is a set of claims. An address, an agent, a price, a description. All of it is there to be checked, not taken as read.

The photographs are not a survey. "In need of modernisation" is not a schedule of works. "Investment opportunity" is a label, and a tenanted buy to let property for sale carrying that label may not be available for vacant-possession works at all. The tenancy decides that, not the listing. A project is not evidence of a discount either. Below market value properties are a different search: that one is about price against comparable sales, this one is about condition, and a tired kitchen tells you nothing about the first.

So the sequence is short. Open the listing. Read the full description, not the headline. Look at the floorplan and the EPC if they are there. Book the viewing. Take a property checklist so you look at the same things in every house and can compare them afterwards. Then, if it is still interesting, a survey, plus any specialist checks the surveyor says are needed.

Ready to Find Some Run Down Houses?

Log in to Rightmove and Zoopla, run the keyword searches above on the postcode you know best, and set an alert on each. Add OnTheMarket with a plain-English search and an alert. Bookmark the auction houses covering your area and read the next catalogue. Once the alerts are live, the portals do the daily checking and you do the reading.

Renovation is one route, not the only one. The homepage sets out the range of property investments uk we cover, and the investment properties uk page is where we introduce buyers to a smaller number of deals rather than a portal's worth of listings. More choice is not always what an investor wants. Some want the whole portal. Some want fewer options they can get through in an evening. This page is for the first group.

Video Walkthrough to Find Run Down Houses

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