Reno or demolish and rebuild? what is cheaper?

Hello everyone,

I have an old 3 bedroom brick veneer home in the Blue Mountains.

Every time i get a building inspection the prognosis is worse

It has damp/drainage problems and needs excavating with a bobcat around the garage - about 2m down.

Then it needs footings put there for a retaining wall as well as along a long driveway to the road, on which i need to build bessa block walls.

It's entire asbestos-cement roof needs replacing as there are leaks in 2 places. The building inspector said I wouldn't be able to find them, it would maybe make more leaks to walk on the roof as I would crack the tiles. He said it would be dangerous to walk up there, i'd fall through. It's a flat roof.

the gutters need replacing as do the rotten fascia boards.

the whole timber deck is full of rot and needs replacing.

Many of the pipes are iron and need replacing.

We are now up to $50,000 estimated (and what if it goes over budget?)

Even if you fix this stuff, inside needs new carpets, new kitchen, new bathroom.

Do you think the roof is likely to cost more than $20k?

is this likely to go way over $50k?

Is it worth it? what would you do?

I would renovate, nearly a full demolish but don't do the whole lot.

We have kept the outer walls on our place, roof and floor. Everything else is GONE.
We worked out it was cheaper to do this than totally rebuild, as there is the main structure still in tact to use as a base.

We have removed 9K worth of asbestos from the property.

Good luck.