Posting here because I don't have anyone to bounce this off in RL, I hate talking precise numbers of money with people I know, particularly when this is a really first world problem to have. We're looking at remortgaging to free up some money for home improvements over the next few months, and I'm worried I'm missing something. We did this before (on a smaller amount) and didn't regret it, but we're now looking at doing it again with a larger chunk.
We bought our house a few years ago for £165k (as a three-bed fixer upper in the north, we could have borrowed more but I was worried about the debt and I've at times regretted not going higher and getting a better house), the bank now thinks it's worth £230k due to house prices increasing. We currently owe around £140k left on the mortgage (we're in our 30's so have about 22 years left on the term I think). We don't have any plans to move as we like the area and the house is big enough and has a lot of potential, it just still needs a lot of work doing (conservatory turning into extension, garden ripping out, driveway and front of house redoing, flipping a bathroom and bedroom upstairs). I think we were a little optimistic when we bought it!
We previously remortgaged a few years ago to free up money (around £20k) to redo our kitchen and turn a garage into part of the house, and are looking at doing it again. We've spoken to a mortgage advisor and the bank could lend us up to £45k, which is a LOT more than we borrowed last time, and would take the overall amount we owe on the mortgage up to £184k. If we sold after doing the work I suspect (based on local houses that have sold recently) our house would worth be around £280k, though we're not planning on doing that.
I've rationalised it by the fact that we can afford the repayments fairly comfortably (it would be 30% of our take home pay, we can get the house revalued before we fix our mortgage next time and I suspect the LTV will have changed and get us a better deal, we both work in fairly secure jobs, though I know there's never a guarantee), it would be cheaper than moving house to a 'finished' house of a similar size (would probably be looking at around £280k at least for the sort of thing we're after) and I desperately want to have a house that I'm not ashamed to invite people round for play dates!
I think it's a good idea logically, the mortgage advisor seems to think it will be straight forward (though they would say that I imagine), DH is on board, I think I've just started to have a wobble about the sums of money involved (even though it would be less than moving house really) and started worrying about house prices dipping - I'm hoping the fact that we're planning to stay put means that's less of a concern though.
Would welcome any advice - is there anything I should be concerned about or worried about? Or is there anything I haven't considered or researched that I should? I remember being worried when it was 'just' £20k last time, it just seems such vast sums of money to me!