I'm after advice, this is long, sorry.
I'm not feeling confident at the grown-up stuff and have no-one else to ask.
I have a 1936 built 3 bed semi-detached house in Liverpool with a 90ft garden. It was in a poor state when I bought it for £129,950 4 years ago. Many neighbours have extended/done loft conversions. No space for a side return.
It is now worth (according to the Halifax) 160k. I owe 103k on the mortgage. I have had rooms plastered, the back rendered, new front bay windows, a circuit breaker board put in, a new roof (the old one was sliding off) in the years we've been here. A new bathroom but I was burned with that one and it needs doing again.
I have a dc who is coming up for 14 at Easter. This is relevant because of timings/exam disruption.
My mortgage deal is up, and I can remortgage as follows:
a) 135k for 5 years fixed (repayments up from £560 to £740, top of my budget) leaving 32k for a single story pitched roof with Velux windows and some kind of glass exterior doors 6m extension. I am waiting on the bank to see if I've got this money. I'd be looking to remodel the under stairs/kitchen area to try and get a downstairs loo/utility as well as knock through to the back room and have one big kitchen/diner/back room.
b) remortgage current amount for 2 years and try to overpay wildly. Then see where I am. But the dc would be coming up for 16 - exams.
c) remortgage for 5 years and forget about it because of Brexit.
d) remortgage as per a) but do the loft out instead, hip-to-gable. This is the dc’s preferred option, but I think from an invest-in-the-house-as-an-asset sense, a kitchen you can get a washing machine/drier/dishwasher in is a better prospect. We don’t need an extra bedroom.
Complications:
i) A brick and tile pitched roof shed with a cold water standpipe (where my washer and dryer are now, there is no room in the tiny kitchen) would need knocking down (but the neighbour's shed leaving up! They are together under the pitched roof).
ii) A soil pipe moving from the back to the side of the house (others have done this so convinced the drains go around rather than under the house) but this would mean a new bathroom? Or do you just box them in? It is old, corroded but still sound, but needs replacing anyway.
iii) There is a tree (silver birch) which would be within 3ft of the new extension
iv) The boiler would need moving/replacing. It is an 8 years old Potterton floor-standing 30w behemoth with a cylinder in the bedroom upstairs, so take out the boiler and cylinder and put a combi in the bedroom cupboard.
In short, I don’t know my arse from my elbow with building/renovating and have no clue. I have asked people who have had work done, and they seem to think I could get a) done for that money, round here (they don't know about the complications). I’m not talking high-end finishes, but not cheap. Medium, you know. Planner rather than architect. Non-VAT registered builders. Subcontractors. I know a plasterer, a tiler and a plumber. Much faff, with my full-time job, two dogs and a teen to wrangle.
Brexit/interest rates scare me a lot. But wasting the opportunity/house does too. Age is against me, and it’s now/in two years or never really.
What would you do, please?