£60k ? Am I crazy ?! Or AIBU?

[Toomanyshillings]

Please help give me some perspective as I’m driving myself crazy !

Maybe, subconsciously I don’t think I deserve nice things ? But a part of me thinks ‘this isn’t my forever home’ I may only be here for 5 years (mortgage term), but then maybe I’ll be here longer. ?

Our house needs a full renovation, kitchen is tiny and the rest of the house is very dated.

I am spending £60k on the work which includes:
small side extension
wall between kitchen and dining room knocked out to have kitchen/ diner. I will still have a separate lounge.
new (small) utility room and downstairs loo and shower
new bathroom
new kitchen with quartz / Neff appliances etc
loft board boarded up for storage

the AIBU is that I keep thinking am I spending too much ? I could just get a standard kitchen fit instead of going for what I really want ?

Will I be the money back when I sell ?

part of me wants to just spend as little as possible but I know I wont be happy with the finish

So confused 😐

Don't forget that you're not just adding value but also improving your house's saleability - the changes you're planning to make will make it more desirable for the majority of house buyers.

£60K sounds very low for the work planned though. If it was my house I'd look at prioritising the most desirable elements and perhaps cutting back on the budget for the higher end kitchen, since you're not planning to stay there for very long.

However I was caught out in that kind of thinking in my previous house; I didn't make big changes I wanted to because I both didn't have the budget and thought I would only be there about four/five years. It turned out to be fourteen years and I spent the time wishing I'd done the works I'd wanted (I would have had to extend mortgage to do it probably but the main thing was "I won't be here long"...)

I would do what you have planned. Enjoy the house the way you want it.

Who knows, you might decide to stay much longer.

As others have said, £60k is a great price. Provided that you have a contingency for overrun of about 20% you can't go wrong. Kitchen wise, have you checked out https://www.diy-kitchens.com/ and the quality is streets ahead of Howdens and similar. Prices so much more competitive but you have to design it yourself (they have tools to help)- which sounds difficult but we spent about a day planning it with a glass of vino and it fitted perfectly and saved a fortune! Can't rate that company higher. Our builder (like most) was obsessed with Howdens but he was blown away at how much better they were and now uses them on his jobs. As for the Quartz's worktops, we found an amazing company in west London which cut and fitted them at a fraction of the price of anyone else. All in all with a bit of hustle we did a similar job for your budget (with 15% overrun) 3 years ago.

It's 10k less than we spent on our new kitchen and bathroom plus decorating downstairs without an extension.

If you’re 100% sure you won’t stay more than 5 years then I wouldn’t spend £60k, save it for your forever home. You won’t make that money back. We spent more that we should have done on our first home, only stayed 3.5 years, and it didn’t raise the value a lot. I wish we’d saved the money for our forever home.

Sounds like a bargain. We’ve spent nearly £30k doing two bathrooms and remodelling three bedrooms.

That is a lot of work for 60k, pre pandemic sure but now with material costs having shot up and how much labour costs have increased, that seems a great deal. Only people I know getting nicely reasonable quotes these days are people who know tradespeople, are tradespeople or do a hell of a lot of the work themselves.

I would certainly want contracts with your builders and tradespeople agreeing to those costs and timeframes too.

Hard to say if you would get your money back upon sale as every house has a ceiling price, it depends on your purchase price and the market at the time.

Also, 9 times out of 10 something surprising also crops up so you need a contingency fund.

Ultimately, it depends if you want to do the work to enjoy a beautiful home or if it’s about profit/adding value.

I think it sounds like reasonable—not great—value for money. But since you don’t expect to stay in the house, the important question is will you get your money back in added value when you come to sell, and that depends pretty much on where you are. If you are in London zone 3, almost certainly. If you are in, say, Hull, probably not. You need to look at prices on Rightmove to find out.

If you’re not staying there long term I’d ask if it’d add value to the house sale price. If yes then go for it, if no then I’d save my £60k for a house move.

I would go for what you want if you can afford it. You probably won’t recoup all the money when you sell but if you have a functional house you love for 5 or 6 years go for it.

NB DH persuaded me to make several compromises when we renovated our house and I so regret not digging my heels in more and having what I wanted.

Good grief that is a bargain! Where in the country are you? Also be prepared for it to go over budget - do you have a contingency fund?

Will you actually use a downstairs shower? My sister has one and essentially it's a storage pod! Loo yes. Shower no.

What are house prices like in your street and how much would you expect to get for yours, by comparison?

Would it be cheaper to move? Sometimes on Love It or List It on TV the costs are much higher than estimated. On one I saw the other day, they spend something like £130,000+ on it but it had only gone up in value by £65,000.

Where ru? I'd like a 60k extension with those outcomes!! It'll add more than £60k to the value esp given you won't sell for several years and you'll get the benefit of it.

Good luck x

We spent £50k on this house when we moved in.

New conservatory, my dream kitchen, new bathroom, new central heating, all new doors and windows, garden down, loads of other bits.

It’s put more than the 50 on the value. Now that DH is sick, which of course was a horrible surprise it’s nice to know that this is a comfy ‘home’.

Have you got the money spare, with nothing more important to spend it on?

Very few renovations add quite as much value to a house as they cost. But it will add some and keeping a house up to date will help it sell faster when you do move (which can lower costs and make getting the house of your dreams easier). You also get 5+ years of living in the updated place. And it will most likely lower your maintenance costs during that time.

Which isn’t to say you ought to do it. Just that there’s far more to consider than the cost of renovations versus the money you’ll get back when you sell.

It depends where you are, speak to local estate agent or search on rightmove for something comparable.

You don’t know that.

It totally varies depending on where the house is and type of property.

Check if the value of the house when the work is done will be more than comparable houses in the area. If it is going to be too much then you may not get your money back. However if it could be your forever home once it is done then go for it .

How much is your house worth now? How much is the most expensive house in your street worth? Having a lovely kitchen and bathroom will help to sell a property, and the expansion and downstairs cloakroom will make your house a better option for a family. But it's unlikely you'll get the money back unless you're in an expensive area. If you want to do so much, would you be better off moving?

If you want to stay, and there's a chance you would end up staying longer than planned, then do what makes life better for you - just don't expect to get all that outlay back. I'm assuming you've had a few quotations, and you've allowed for extras, so it might be worth getting advice from an estate agent before making the commitment.

I'll be amazed if you get all that done for 60k

How much was the house purchase?

If you get the investment back depends on how it affects functionality and if the style is modern but neutral. But generally yes renovations are very appealing for buyers.

Yes- go online and look up all the homes in your area that recently sold, compare to the last sale price, and what their interiors look like. Comparison is 99% of real estate value.

Resale value. It'll be worth it.

And you deserve it. I think whatever has happened in the past that makes you think you don't deserve stuff was a bit shit.

(Fellow poster who is working on trying not to believe I'm not worth it! )