Would you move or extend your house?

[sunshine]

I'd welcome your opinions on this one.

We currently live in a 2 bed end terrace in a suburb of Birmingham. We bought 6 years ago but now the prices have skyrocketed and our house is now valued at 100K more than when we bought it.

Having mooched through the papers, a 3 bed semi with a tiny box room is going to be at least another 50K more than where we are now. 4 beds is about another 80K :faint:

So now I'm wondering whether to have a loft conversion and then get the kitchen extended? I'm guessing this would be 30-40K but we would get a really large kitchen, 2 big bedrooms and a smaller one (as part of DDs current room would be lost to make room for the stairs to the loft). So if we had 3 kids then 2 would have to share.

This is the sort of kitchen extension I'm thinking about...

http://www.londonkitchenextensions.co.uk/gallery.htm

I love the idea of having big open glass sliding doors so we can see the garden/ walk straight out onto it for parties!

It would have to be in 2 years time when OH qualifies from uni but what do you think? It is a false economy to spend loads on extending?

Thanks

Sunshine69

[donna-j]

Our loft conversion is about to cost 27k plus vat. The builders are supposed to start in 4 weeks :brainache:

That's a basic 2 beds + bathroom, and we still have to buy the bathroom suite. It does include the architect, council fees etc, plus a new consumer unit (£200 max), moving the water tank, knocking down a kitchen wall and moving the l/r wall to house the stairs. It's just a velux conversion, dormers would have been an extra 3k + vat each. It's not cheap, but we bought a bungalow for the sole purpose of doing this.

I think you'd be VERY lucky to get all the work you are wanting done for 40k.

Still probably less hassle and cheaper than moving, by the time you factor in fees, stamp duty, removal costs etc. However, think about the resale value. Will it make your house the biggest and/or most expensive in the street by miles? If so, you might have problems selling it.

[Teresa]

I'm not really sure what I would do but would probably look carefully at both options.

That is a really fab looking kitchen and something I would love to have. Would it still leave you with a nice sized garden though? Although I'd love a big kitchen like that, I wouldn't like it take up most of my garden but that might not bother you.

Do you like the area where you live? If you love it and want to stay living there, then I'd seriously consider looking at the extension. If you're not sure then perhaps moving might be a good idea. If you are planning on staying in the house for a long time then the extension is probably worth the money. I personally wouldn't spend that kind of money if I was planning on moving in a few years. I think I would the money towards the new house.

There is no telling what will happen to house prices in a couple of years so I wouldn't make firm plans now. You never know, you might completely change them.

I'm not much help am I???

[sunshine]

Thanks for your replies- I did respond to Donna's post and then it got lost :doh:

I was quite surprised to hear how much your extension would be Donna! I'd guestimated about 30K for the kitchen and 10 for the loft. But that would just be for the stairs, velux window and electrics- we wouldnt bother with an en-suite as we have a big bathroom.

It wouldnt cut into the size of our garden at all Teresa because we have a small, rectangular kitchen at the minute. What we'd have to do is knock down the outhouses at the end of the kitchen and then extend out (along the side return) and down. We would lose the patio but could build a deck without losing too much space.

If I stay in Bham then yes I love where we live and wouldnt want to move to a different area. Part of me lusts to live in the SouthWest or New Zealand though!

Tee hee I have seen the builders doing a very similar project down the road so have asked them to give me a rough quote tomorrow :thumb: I'll tell you how much they quote!

BTW our house is probably one of the smallest on our road- they really range in size so it wouldnt look that ridiculous compared to the others. Most of the terraces along here have had loft conversions and small extensions, but I think that is often a bathroom.

ETA to add: there is another option. We had a builder come and give us a quote to just make our kitchen longer (so a long, thin rectangular kitchen), with a dining space and french doors at the end, all for 11K. It wouldnt be so WOW as the ones in the pics above but still quite functional.

[donna-j]

I think an extansion is about £800-£1000 per square meter. So it's probably the other way round almost, 10k for the kitchen and 30 for the loft.

We did only get one quote but I asked around a lot and that's what it seems to cost. You would still need an architect (approx 800?) or a draftsman, a structural engineer (who might be able to do the architects bit too I would imagine), to lodge the plans with the council (check your council website for costs). The velux windows are about £300 each (we paid £500 including fitting in our last place), plus you would possible need a new fuse box to cope with all the extra load. The joists might need strengthened too.

There is a good guide here about loft conversions:

http://www.fmb.org.uk/publications/masterbuilder/march04/10.pdf

http://www.fmb.org.uk/publications/masterbuilder/april04/10.pdf

[sunshine]

Thanks Donna :)

[Henrietta Figg]

We had a ground-floor extension done four years ago and it cost £50,000. To move up to the next size house would have meant an increase in price of house from £300,000 to £450,000 or £500,000, which we couldn't afford.

The extension is a fmily room with two velux windows, small office, and our brick built pantry was converted to a cloakroom.

[Abbie]

Check what the ceiling price is for a home in your road would be before you decide.

It may be that you'd never see your money back and it would be cheaper in the long run to move

A friend of ours has spent £30K on a loft extension but he's now discovered that he won't really see the money back on it as the work done hasn't increased the value of the property by the amount he's spent on it. If he stays there long enough it will increase so that he doesn't lose anything, but it would have increased by that much with the market anyway (iyswim)

[donna-j]

I agree Abbie. Luckily the people almost opposite us moved in the same day as us, and we know their house cost 60k more than ours so it's easy to compare. They have their loft converted. So we hope to spend max 40 and should be in 'profit'.

[Princess Fiona]

I'm not an expert but loft conversions can get expensive. Its ok having stairs put up and Velux windows and having the floors boarded etc etc BUT your Local Council will have to inspect it up to a very high standard if you wish to sell on your house in the future advertising the loft space as a "habitable" room.

I've no idea on costs but if you were planning on staying there for quite soom time after the extension/loft conversion had taken place then it might not be an issue to you, but if you wanted to sell on advertising this EXTRA room its worth spending the money and getting it done properly to start with.

I'm not sure what i'd do personally, i'd love to be in the position tbh as we can't even afford to buy atm but hey ho!!

I spose you never can tell whats going to happen to the property market, you could loose out or gain both ways.

I think it would be worth while budgeting "properly" how much it would cost you to move and how much it would cost you to extend, taking account of solicitors fees right through to new furniture/decorating etc etc and then see what you think. If its WAY cheaper to extend than it is to move then i'd be inclined to stay and extend and then sell on in the future hoping not to loose too much money, but you never know. If it works out similar then i'd be inclined to move.

hth

[Damsella]

You also have to factor in the costs of moving - estate agent's fees, solicitors, stamp duty, and other costs.

Sometimes extending does work out a lot cheaper as long as you aren't overdeveloping.

[donna-j]

Yup, our fees for moving amounted to at least 7k all in.

[Princess Fiona]

You also have to factor in the costs of moving - estate agent's fees, solicitors, stamp duty, and other costs.

Sometimes extending does work out a lot cheaper as long as you aren't overdeveloping.

Exactly which is why i said that it would be best to sit down and work out properly how much each option would cost, it end up costing the same to move as to extend, depending on what needed doing and then if they planned to move eventually anyway it would be pointless.

It must be a very difficult decision to make, but you need to be really sensible about it and gather as much info as you can.

[sunshine]

Thanks for your advice girls it really is appreciated.

Some good points have been raised and it sounds as though I should be finding out more about how much it would cost to get the loft done. At the end of the day, if it costs a fortune then we might as well move house and not worry about it. Maybe if we moved into a 3 bed house then we could convert the loft and kitchen in that house (if we had any money left!) and make it into a home to live in for many years.

It's just people have becoem so greedy and housing is just so ridiculously expensive :brainache: . I dont want to have no life or holidays because of a mammoth mortgage :puzzled: :scratchchin:

[popinjay1]

I think loft conversions are more costly than people think. My friend wanted a simple loft conversion and she was quoted 25k. Alot of this was because she would have to have work done on her ceiling on the ground floor to support the work I think.

Anyway, when we eventually move away from London we are looking to buy a house with extension possibilities for the future. But we are aiming on moving to somewhere we want to stay for the rest of our life so wouldn't be looking to sell on in the near future.

[goldilocks]

We've just had our loft converted and paid about £26k for it. I have to say it was worth every penny- we love it :grin: . We have a master bedroom and ensuite shower room up there, and the price included the flooring, but not the decorating as they knocked almost a grand off if we were happy to decorate it ourselves.

We had an estate agent come round before we had it done and he said that we would probably make the cost of it back if we sold, but that it wont add value because it would reach the maximum ceiling that people will pay for a house like ours around here. But we decided to go ahead because A) we couldnt buy a 4 bed around here for the extra it cost us to convert, and B) because we like it here and dont really want to move. We have good neighbours, good schools, and I have a successful business that I run from home. So for us it made sense.

[shining star]

We're in the kind of same boat as you sunshine. We live in a 3 bed end of terrace with a fairly big garden. It is now worth about €200-250K more than we bought it for 3 years ago (property prices in Ireland and particularly Dublin have been going absolutely mental for years now and no sign of slowing down) To move to a 4 bed house in the same area would cost us about €400K more than we paid for our house :shock: At the moment, the size of the house is fine for us, but one more child and we would definitely need / want more space. Plus, if we moved, we would really want to move closer to the area next to ours which would be even more expensive.

SO, we're planning on a pretty major extension - extending the kitchen so that it will become a kitchen / breakfast room / living area (so we will have two living and eating areas). And upstairs we will add another bedroom with ensuite & walk in wardrobe, and extend our main bathroom. We have estimated that it will cost about €150K, so it will be a LOT cheaper than moving, especially when you factor in solicitors fees etc. We decided against doing a loft conversion even though it would work out cheaper, because we would be really tight for space putting in an extra stairway.

I've sketched out our ideas, and at the moment we're working on clearing any debts we have so that we can go ahead with the extension, but it will probably be next year at the earliest.

The other thing that swings it for me, is that extending and renovating your own house means that everything will be exactly as you want it......even if you move into a bigger house, you can guarantee there are things you will want to change.

In your case, it sounds like it comes down to how much an extension would cost relative to moving house, but I don't think you would actually lose out on it.

ss
xx

[*kate*]

The other thing that swings it for me, is that extending and renovating your own house means that everything will be exactly as you want it......even if you move into a bigger house, you can guarantee there are things you will want to change.
This is a very important factor for me - having gutted the majority of our house I would hate to have to move as I've chosen everything in my house - it's so personal to me now. I'd hate to move elsewhere and have to live with someone else's bathroom, carpet, kitchen etc.

[sunshine]

Had a quote from the builder- he reckons it will be 17K for the kitchen extension and 8/9K for the loft! So not as much as we feared....even OH is making agreeable noises!

Will let you know what we decide...

[donna-j]

My God, that is so cheap :grin: :ellie: :shock:

[cheeky_biscuit]

That sounds good. I suppose one way to look at it, would be in terms of how long you're going to stay for as opposed to looking at it as an investment (which I don't think you are anyway).

[sunshine]

Yes it is cheap but I dont think he is a cowboy because he's building an identical extension down the road which I had a quick look at- it looked really good. I might have a chat to the owner of the house just to see how he's found them.

[sugarpops]

Probably move as if we extended we'd have to stay at my MIL's house and i don't know if i could stay there that long. We might get a conservatory in a few years time to add more space as our lounge is a bit small with 2 kids.

sugarpops x

[Micah]

I moved.

Was in exactly your situation, 2 bed house and we either extended into the loft or moved.

What swung us was the downstairs space. Yes we'd have had enough beds/sleeping space but although we had a reasonable sized living room and kitchen-diner, there wasn't really enough space for four people to sit in one room and get on with their acitivities.

So we moved (down the road!) to a 3-bed semi. Round here the maths works out at 100K more per bedroom, so we had to take out the biggest mortgage we could. A four bed though is 100K more than we paid! There is the possibility to loft extend to a 4-bed, but that's a long way down the track, if at all. We have much more living space as well as the extra bedroom, and it feels much more spacious, I think we would have still felt we were living in a tiny terrace had we extended the old house, iyswim.

Moving was definately the right decision for us.

[sunshine]

Interesting point Micah :scratchchin: . I've been to the Estate Agents and she felt that it wouldnt be worth extending, as we would have to sell for 200K to break even and you can buy a 3 bed semi round here for 210K.

I went with Tess to play at an NCT Mum's house on Friday. Hers is a 3 bed semi but she could extend out over her garage or into the loft, giving her the potential for 6 bedrooms! I agree that the downstairs living space also feels a lot more spacious for a whole busy family, whereas here we would be tripping over one another.

It's a pity actually as my NCT friend's neighbour is seling their house but we wont beable to extend our mortgage for another 2 years- doh.