Come help me make one of the most important decisions of my life, I can't and feel like my head is going to explode!

[sweetkitty]

We live in a small 3 bed detached, largish garden, not too bad downstairs, upstairs a joke, two OK bedrooms and one boxroom (think one single bed and a chest of drawers and it's cluttered), we have 4 DC, currently DD1 and 3 share a small double room, DD2 has the boxroom and DS has his cot in with us. Theres no cupboard space or garage. Oh we have 3 bathrooms as well.

So we need to do something drastic and soon.

Plan one: extend, we have the garden space, we have planning permission and building warrant for a 2 storey L shaped extension that will give us a 5 bedroomed house (3 doubles and 2 singles), a downstairs playroom, a study/office/dumping ground and a large utility room. Cost well originally architect/builder said about 50K, had it requoted and it's now 75K, we have 120K left on mortgage, house worth about 150K, we have 32K in cash and would need to finance the rest of the build, we live in a quiet cul de sac but in not that nice an area, I like our street DH not so keen. We had issues with the neighbours re the build but they are fine now. Downside is that it would be 16 weeks of living hell with four young DC (we have no family to help out/move in with).

Plan two move: four beds range from 160K for a similar area to here to 250K for a good area. We seen a lovely house in a good area but it's quite small and we would need to convert the garage at a cost of 6K straight away, oh the house is 230K, we could get the 160K but it's in a not as nice area, smaller garde/smaller rooms and would still need the garage converting. So we would end up with technically 5 bedrooms (one downstairs) and probably a conservatory for extra playing space, downside is we need to spend some money on this house doing it up to sell, then putting it on the market and we all know what the market is like just now, 5K to sell in fees etc, 6K on garage conversion, DH wants to move from this street and area though. Also stress of viewings and actually moving with the DC.

Thanks for getting this far, I wish someone would just tell me what to do, DH has wimped out a bit and said I have the final decision as I spend the majority of my time in the house, SAHM for now but want/plan a bit of working at home.

My head is splitting thinking about it all.

[nalubeadsgirl]

get the estate agents round, get it valued, get it up. If someone likes your house, it could sell quickly. Gives you options. If it doesn't sell (and let's be honest, a lot is just sticking at the minute) you'll then be able to decide to stay put and extend.

You've said your DH doesn't really like where you live and not in that nice an area. Do you really want to spend time and money doing something up that you're not keen on? You could spend a fortune and it can add hardly anything to your property value - everything has a ceiling value.

Personally, small steps. Get the agents round, get yours up for sale. one step at a time. In the meantime, better houses might pop up on the market :)

[GrendelsMum]

Cost of option 1 - 75k + all the extras that they haven't quoted you for, e.g. paint, carpet, etc
Cost of option 2 - 80k diff in house prices, 6k to convert garage, solicitors fees, estate agents fees, stamp duty.

Move house, if you can afford it. Why go through 20 weeks (it will be at least 20 weeks) of builders' hell with 4 DC when your DH doesn't even like the place you live?

As Nalubeadsgirl says, small steps. Fix the problems with the house, get estate agents round, get it valued, put it up for sale.

[Bramshott]

If you spend 75k on an extension (and that's a LOT of money), will your house be worth more than 225k? Would a loft conversion be cheaper?

[iseenodust]

Your current home is worth £150k & the extension will cost £75k. Will the finished home be worth £225k, especially if you need to move unexpectedly re job? sounds like a lot of money to have in an area you're not that keen on.

[iseenodust]

x post!

[Rhubarbgarden]

Agree with the others; the first option doesn't sound economic. Houses that have been over-extended at the expense of garden space and beyond what is in keeping with the original house can be hard to sell. Unless you really like where you are, I would move.

[sweetkitty]

I'm happy with the area, close to school, end of cul de sac we've lived here for 6 years and it's been fine.

I just look at 4 beds and think they are so small etc for the money, estate agents said that with the valuation of 150K we would expect to sell it for 140K as nothing is going for the Home Report value.

Have painted one room already, got a bathroom and two others to tart up yet.

Our house is funny in that it looks small and adding the extension would actually balance it up, if you think of it as being two thirds on it's plot, we would be adding another third (and back), we would also incorporate a bit of land thats not in our back garden so in terms of garden space we would still have more than the average new build IYSWIM, house is less than 10 years old, sorry forgot to add that.

So it looks like the general consensus is still to move???

[Pancakeflipper]

We had a large house extension. I don't regret it.
We did look at moving. But I like the area we live in, neighbours and schools. For a 5 bed house we'd have had to move to less lovely area and when push came to shove - I couldn't leave.

We had builders who worked with the fact we couldn't move out. It was a 22 week build. Only 4 weeks of it was awful ( the month of no kitchen). If you extend pick your builder wisely. Someone who has polite and considerate contractors working for them - ask to speak to people who have work completed by them.

[BackforGood]

Personally, I'd prefer the extension. You know what you've got and what you'll be getting.
If you put it on the market, there's no guarentee you will sell, and then you'd be lucky to get the new house available at the point you are ready to move.
If you did, it then sounds like you need the builders to come in and work on the new house - seems you won't gain a lot .
Financially, I agree, you can 'over extend' a house in terms of the value when you come to sell, but if you are not planning to sell in next 10 years or so, then the value you get in living in it outweighs that a bit. If you like the road, and the convenience, that counts for a lot IMO. Yes, it will be hard while the build is going on, but any decent builder will work round you as much as they can - you aren't going to be without kitchen and bathroom for that much of the time.

[annh]

What kind of quote is the £75k? Is that actually from a builder, including everything? Or is it still an estimate? Sounds barely enough to me for the size of extension you are planning. So I would expect to end up paying more. In your case, I would move.

[Becaroooo]

That sounds a lot for an extension...get a few other builders round for quotes???

[sweetkitty]

The builder is ready and raring to go, it was just after we had the thing with the neighbours that we decided we would move. We aren't getting any new bathrooms or kitchen! Downstairs the extension will wrap around most of the downstairs and the only major building work will be a new window, the access for the rest will come from existing doors. Upstairs is a different story, the boxroom will be halved one half will be the corridor for 3 new bedrooms the other half will go into the master bedroom, the window in the master bedroom will also be need to be moved. Both the ensuite and family bathroom will remain as they are.

We aren't looking for what will gain the most financially so to speak, whatever option this will be our forever home for hopefully the next 20 years or so.

If the extension were to be completed at a rough guess I would say we would be looking at a 200K value afterwards.

[sweetkitty]

Oh the 3 quotes were all around that. Our original builder had quoted as 54K but when it came to start he said he didn't want to do it anymore! The 3 builders have all said this was far too low and they cannot understand how he could have done it for that.

Oh forgot to say as well we are in Scotland hence Home Reports etc

[cece]

Location is important if this is your forever home.

[sweetkitty]

Another little factor if of course school catchment!

The DCs are at a RC primary school just now, the RC secondary is not that great TBH and we are not that fussed about sending them to an RC secondary as by that time all their sacraments are over with. Now at the moment we are in the catchment for a not so great non denom secondary school so if we stayed here they would go to the RC secondary. Now the house we both really like is in the catchment (and less than 5 mins walk) from the best performing nondenom secondary in the county, kid you not this is the school people buy flats in the catchment for to get the postcode, it's one of those school. This is also adding 20-30K to the new houses value IYSWIM.

Oh bugger I think I am talking myself into moving aren't I?

[catpark]

Is the whole extension 2 storey or just the side of it ? What sort of square footage is it as that will make a difference on build costs, £75K does seem a bit high. It's usually cheaper to extend than move.

If you are happy were you are and don't plan on moving for years then go with the extension. We have our house up for sale and we paid out nearly £500 for the home report then the same again for going in the ESPC and getting schedules printed. We can't extend our current place which is a real bummer.

[kitsmummy]

so it's either extend at a loss (you said the £75k extension won't add £75k value) and stay in a ropey area with bad schools, or move for about the same money into a house worth what you pay for it (at the time of moving at least), with great schools and being a much nicer area? Hmmm, tough decision to make

[BackforGood]

I think the catchment fo the secondary school you've now told us about, makes a big difference - earlier on you said you were close to the schools, so this changes things slightly.

[sweetkitty]

Thanks sometimes just talking it through helps.

Yes the extension is 2 storey all the way round don't know exact square footage though.

Just trying to balance out the route of less upheaval moving with 4 DC v extending with 4 DC.

Yes home report will be about £500 plus EA marketing fees think they were about £150 odds we have already spent 2K on the architect/planning permission!

[sweetkitty]

Update - we are definitely moving now. I think I just got the wobbles a bit. There's another 4 bed house in that street up for sale plus we got told that a couple in a street I really want to downsize this year too.

Am currently painting the kids bedrooms, covering up the pink and lilac and fingerprints with the magnolia.

Just hope this house sells quickly now.

[HansieMom]

Good decision! Location is everything.

[xmyboys]

Best decision I think with four children schooling us far more important!
Good luck