Sue, you actually gave good advice about speaking to an estate agent. Any wannabe 'fixer-upper' needs to determine their market first, and EA's are useful in this respect. They might even say that there's no financial gain to be had in spending money on the property, and leave it to any potential buyer to put their own stamp on it. It's hard for anyone else to give practical advice at the moment as the OP has been so vague. What type of property is it, where is it, house or flat, period or modern, how many beds, any outside space etc etc. Until all that's known any other advice is pointless really...