If you could add another bedroom and bathroom toYour house by doing your loft for 48k would you ?

[LovelyYellowLabrador]

Would you do this ?

On a 3 bed, yes because it makes a profit when you sell. People want 4 bed houses so the work pushes the property into the next up category.

On a 4 bed, I wouldn’t, because it makes a loss when you sell. Once a house has 4 beds people won’t pay much more to get a 5th, instead they focus on detached/area/garden/garage etc

Yes if I could find a reputable builder to do it for that price. Very unlikely.

@Alwayswonderedwhy

Yes if I could find a reputable builder to do it for that price. Very unlikely.

Where are you based? In my area the reputable builder who has done mine and a few of my friends does it for around that price and we are Epsom/Cheam area

For a standard I must say 3 bed semi detached loft conversion

Depends on whether it will make the house top heavy - does the living space still accommodate the number of bedrooms bevause if not then you might not get the value back. In that case I'd weigh up why you're doing it and whether you plan to be in the house longish term, or only for a few years and need a decent resale value

We have just done this. Cost us around 39k. It's totally worth it, given us a lovely sized bedroom, small walk in wardrobe and a good sized bathroom- not huge but not pokey. Was stressful, for me anyway, but I don't regret it.

Yes (though I would make it living space)

But only because it would increase the value of the house as the views would be better…plus dh would love it

On a 2 or 3 bed, yes, assuming the downstairs is big enough for us.

Do allow a big contingency though, prices are shooting up.

Yes, we did this and it was massively less impactful than getting our garden redone (which was awful for the dust). Plus the room at the top felt so calm compared to the rest of the house.

Several questions really, is our a long term home and will or make your life easier? Will you get back the money spent when you sell? If you won't or you'll only break even that could still be ok if you're going to be there a long time and the added space makes a positive impact on your life

Fwiw we're putting two rooms and a bathroom in our loft, but we have 3 reception rooms downstairs and are looking to extend our kitchen to the side to make a big kitchen diner. We also have a large garden so the house won't feel top heavy or crammed into a small plot and plan on being here for at least 15-20 years

We were thinking of this but moved to a four bed house. Now we are thinking of loft conversion for sauna and bathroom.

No because it wouldn’t add that much in value to my house. I’m considering getting quotes to have an upstairs bathroom/en-suite put in though as that might be worthwhile depending how long we stay here.

This is exactly what I did. I put in two bedrooms and a bathroom. It has raised the price of the house significantly and means all the kids can have their own bedroom. Win win!

Yes, we have just started this for slightly higher cost - SW London / Surrey border. Currently, we have 2 dbl bed + 1 boxroom. To move to 3 dbl bed / 4 bed in the samr area would be at least another £100k-£150k plus all the stamp duty / moving costs etc. With two of us hybrid working now, we cant wait to have the extra space.

I would definitely get that money back (but I think it would cost more like £60k+ to do it where I live). I can't afford it, especially when I take into account the disruption to the rest of the house.

I wouldn't as I've had my fill of building work, and my house wouldn't have the downstairs footprint to host another bedroom. It's great as a 4 bed but wouldn't be good as a 5 bed.
Plus I like all bedrooms on the same floor, I've never been taken with lofts or townhouses etc. But I appreciate this is quite specific to me.

Yes, and in fact, I did.

Total cost for us was 53k, which included the loft conversion, re-plastering and repainting the rest of the house, and loving the boiler and putting in a new water system.

We bought at 415k in March 2019. Renovations were 53k. Finished November 2019. Last appraisal in June 2021 was for 525. So definitely worth it for us!

SE London for reference- Hither Green.

I'm about to do this (on two houses in fact). It will add two bedrooms and a bathroom though, and that's about the cost I've been quoted. I still would for one large bedroom and bathroom.

The only reason I'm doing it in the house I'm living in is that the extra £48,000 adds around £150,000 to the selling price of these houses, and I intend to sell at some point, and in the meantime the extra space will I'm sure be useful for something.

We've been thinking about this. Suspect it would be more like £60-70k though. My parents have just had their loft remodelled, not even converted, just the rooms changed from 2 bedrooms to one big bedroom with en suite, and it was £50k. Prices are insane here (Scotland).

The thing that's stopping us is that it would put our house over 4 floors and have 6 toilets seems mental. But the layout at the moment isn't working for 3 kids.

The jump to the next level property for us would be a purchase price of approx £900k - £1m so the stamp duty would be between £66 and 78k... Are we better spending that on a loft or on tax...?

We did, about 5 years ago. We added 2 beds and a shower room to a 1930s 3 bed semi. We went from 2 decent bedrooms and a box room to 4 decent bedrooms and a dedicated office in box bedroom 5 (godsend when wfh!) and from 1 family bathroom to 2. We have, however, found that it made our house somewhat top heavy, and we're now extending the ground floor out to the side to give us a larger kitchen, utility space and downstairs loo.

I don't regret it for one minute. It's raised the value of the house beyond what it cost to do, but most importantly we went from being cramped to having a good sized family home.

We've just spent a fair amount of money putting a useable stair case into two huge attic rooms that were only accessible by a stupidly small turning boxed in staircase.

We won't actually use the rooms that much - but it's opened up the house hugely and will add value when we sell.

We did, and it’s increased the value of the house by more than double what we paid to do the work - for context we went from two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs with no hallway at all (doors all off the top of the staircase) to an actual upstairs hallway, a double bedroom, a single and a bathroom on that floor and then an en suite double in the loft. Whole house seems so much bigger now.

No. We're not short of living space though; storage space is very important to me.

It depends on the layout of the house, the useable space up there (including the landing space for the staircase) and the market in your area. Sometimes these works are done and they make houses ridiculously top heavy because they have a tiddly downstairs footprint and the bedroom accommodation of a much bigger family home. Other times they are shoehorned into awkward spaces where there is very little headroom, the stairs are tricky and the space is claustrophobic.

£48,000?

Our loft conversion only cost £14,000 although admittedly we didn't get a bathroom. This would have meant removing the chimney breast so maybe that + new shower room would have cost another £34,000 (but I doubt it!)