Pam Welsby, 72, from Huyton, and her son Stephen, 42, have spent the past 25 years buying and renovating derelict properties, turning them into turnkey homes for local families. The pair, who run Welsby Developments, describe the work as a "labour of love" despite keeping their profits modest.
From redundancy to renovation
Pam started the business after being made redundant from her IT job at Littlewoods. Stephen, who was living at home with savings, suggested using the money to buy a house. Their first purchase was a three-bed semi-detached property that needed only a bathroom, kitchen, painting, decorating, and some rewiring.
They rented that house out and continued buying similar-sized properties, each requiring progressively more work. Pam told the ECHO: "We rented that out, and we got the bug from there. That was our first three-bed semi, and we have had a number of them since then, all of the same sort of size, all progressively having more work needing done on them. It's really quite addictive once you start."
With no previous experience in the industry, they relied on contacts Stephen had in the building trade. Pam said: "I think it was my son's idea really. He knew quite a few people in the building trade, and I think he had words with them and said 'If I've got this house and it needed this, that, and the other doing, could you help out?' And they all went, 'Yeah, sure'."
Bringing abandoned homes back to life
The business buys derelict properties, renovates them, and gets families living in them. Pam said: "What we do is get something that is derelict, get it done up and get somebody living in it, because there's so many places that you find knocking round and about that are just abandoned, and it's a real shame, especially when people are looking for housing."
Their biggest project to date, a six-bedroom Victorian house on Moss Lane in Bootle, has just been completed. Pam described taking the property down to the brick, learning how to make door frames, laying the lawn and flooring, and decorating throughout. She said: "It's massive compared to what we've done before. We were probably a bit naive when we went into it, but it was just so run-down and dilapidated, and we thought, 'We've got to do something with this, because it's potentially a beautiful house, something different'."
A rocky road with a high standard
The business has faced challenges over the years. Pam said: "It's been a rocky road at times, we've had our ups and downs. But we've never given up on a place. We've always got it there in the end to a high standard, something that we ourselves would live in. We've always tried to keep that at the back of our minds: we're doing this, it's going to be done properly, and it's going to be a fabulous family home."
For the mum and son team, the work has always been about more than making money. She said: "It's just been a real labour of love."
