As the possibility of starting my long-dreamed-of project gets startlingly nearer, I invited a local estate agent round to value the house and ask her whether it was worth doing, financially.
She said that the extension won't add value and I got the impression that she thought it might reduce the value . Bizarrely, she seemed to think that some of the things which I don't like about the house and want to fix are actually assets and would attract a potential buyer.
She said, "oh, this is a big kitchen" (you can't get a table in it) and "it's good that it's at the front, people like that" (I hate that it's at the north-facing front looking out onto block paving and parked cars). She said, "the dining area's really nice, people will like that" (people tend not to use it and it ends up being a bit of a wasted space). "The archway separating it from the lounge is really good" (hate the arch, it looks so old-fashioned and cuts down light from the back).
I wanted to chop off the front of the kitchen to turn it into a utility room, have the kitchen more in the dining area. Then the dining table will go in the nice bit at the back and extend the lounge into the unusable bit of the garden at the side. Lots of people like this idea, but the estate agent thought the lounge is already big and this wouldn't add anything. Bringing the dining area out to the back would effectively get rid of the dining room. Adding a utility room would, she thought, make it look like the property had two kitchens.
The reason I asked her round was because the budget was getting out of control and I needed a reality check. She did that for me -- and then some. She got me to see it from the perspective of a buyer not of someone who is living there. Now, my plan is to live there. But I really need to be careful, if borrowing a lot of money to do this project, that I don't significantly increase my debt on something that is worth no more than when I started.
Bit depressed now. I was in the house today (it's empty after tenants were there, so it's looking very tired) and didn't feel I wanted to move back in anymore.
(pix are existing downstairs layout and proposed)
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Property/DIY
Extention wont add value: bit depressed
61 replies
ShortLass · 16/03/2017 14:53
OP posts:
NaiceBiscuits ·
16/03/2017 15:42
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Message withdrawn at poster's request.
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