Please help with advice on this house we're considering

[SwedeInLeeds]

This is the one:
www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/108109685#/

Pros:
Detached (usually don't think we could afford)
Good school
Nice area
Reasonable garden
Seems reasonably priced considering the crazy market (recently reduced from 375)

Cons:
Sloping garden
Liveable initially, but we would want to extend to make a nice open kitchen diner in the future
Slightly smaller than most properties we've looked at (140-160 m^2) but with rear and loft extension we would get close to that.

Do you see any issues with this?
How would you extend it?
We were thinking 2.5/3 metres to the rear (would lose a bit of garden of course), or if planning permission around a wraparound and convert the garage for utility/office.
Do you think such an extension could work with the garden? Would it be possible to flatten it?

Thanks :)

Just a nice house and lovely garden/tree as it is. I'd just buy as is, move in....and enjoy easy living. Save the project house for next time.

There's loads of space already and the garden is lovely and doesn't need eating into.

Convert the garage and build a room above it. Loads of houses near me have done this and it seems to work very well.

@ZaraCarmichaelshighheels

Why do you need to extend if it’s not a long term home? If you like the house just buy it and renovate it as it is to your taste, it’s a three bed detached house with 2 bathrooms, plenty of space for a young family, save the extension money for a house you intend to stay in for a long time and I agree with Wooly re the cost of the extension, and as for loft conversions they are much harder and therefore much more expensive on an eighties build to convert than an older house due to the roof trusses. I really like the garden by the way, the trees are lovely.

Yes this. The kitchen seems big, there's ample bedroom space etc

Also, the garden is fine, it's not properly sloping. You know you have a really sloped garden when there's parts you can't sit on because the chair might topple. 😄

I wouldn't extend out and lose any of it though. A close relative has extended their house so much there's barely any garden left. Who would buy a huge family home with a postage stamp of outside space? Madness.

If it just two of you , with no kids yet, why are talking about extending? It seems large enough already without adding cost and hassle. And do not underestimate the advantage of being detached .

Parking
How many cars have you got now? Are you going to stay there until your children have cars?
Where do visitors park?
How many cars next door?
We live in a similar cul de sac. We have three parking spaces. Next door have one. They park in tandem outside our house. Not a problem for us, but definitely is for them.

It is a perfect size of house for a couple with no children yet. You can easily have several small children in that house in the future. A sloped garden is fine. We had one and our children played in it no bother. Most of these types of house can't be extended into the loft so I would check that out. In one of our last houses we changed the garage into a playroom which worked very well.

The garden is already small so I wouldn’t build on it. Perhaps convert the garden into playroom or office and spend the money doing up the house.

I know you didn't ask but the bedrooms look small.
The main bedroom is well presented but you would need to have a wardrobe with sliding doors rather than doors that open out. Even with sliding doors, the current side table is blocking the far end.
The other bedrooms are used as single bedrooms for children so have smaller beds and not much furniture. I don't think either would comfortably fit a double bed.

It's a nice house with a lovely open plan kitchen but I'd struggle with bedroom sizes.

When you mention extending, is there something specific you need that it doesn’t have?

I think it looks good value. Detached houses are rare around that price in north Leeds (I know Horsforth etc better than Adel though).
Are you happy with the area? Always felt like there wasn’t much there in the way of amenities would by my only negative.

You could probably get the garden levelled out, but you'd need to consult a landscaper for a quote, not MN.

Extending into that garden would be a huge mistake. The kitchen diner is plenty big enough and it would throw the house/garden balance totally off size wise. Garage conversion/loft is doable (garage conversion for an office should cost less than 10k, loft much more)

I don’t think you could extend at the back. The garden is already tiny. You could convert the garage and build above the garage?

The drive layout with the access for the neighbours would,seriously put me off.

If the kitchen layout is an issue I would just reinstate the wall between the kitchen and living room. The kitchen is quite a generous size but has a poor layout, another wall should give you plenty of space for a fridge.

I agree with others that the plot is too small for an extension. Given the lack of parking I would be also wary of converting the garage.

I would say only buy it if you are happy with the current floor area.

Agree with Zara. Sounds like you don't have DC yet, so why the need to extend? It already has a decent kitchen-diner and enough bedrooms. The garden is the right size for the house as it currently is, but once you make it a four-bed detached, you're competing in a different market. The only development that seems worthwhile would be a garage conversion, but I wouldn't bother making it two-storey unless I had a big family and was stuck in this house for some reason. If there's just the two of you, this seems a good enough house for the next 10 years. Save your money and then get a 4 (or more) bed that was built for purpose.

Yes, just came on to say, stud wall between kitchen and lounge.
Its the reason it's not selling. No one wants a lounge diner. You make the space more usuable as well.

If you look at the house 2 doors to the left, has that been extended? It looks as though it has been, eg garage converted plus first floor addition? If you’re happy to knock on their door, they might be happy to give you a rough idea of costs but would depend on how recent (plus their house seems to have garden to the left, meaning that there wouldn’t have been any need to be on a neighbouring property to construct).

The first floor extension would only really be helpful if you want an additional bedroom with en-suite.

I wouldn’t want to lose any rear garden personally, but if the main thing you want a deeper kitchen/diner, that’s probably the only way to do it?

How big is the garage footprint?

It reminds me of my childhood home and I loved it there. A good catchment school and being detached is a positive. I’d go fir it

Definitely not thr best time to extend if you don’t need to - prices are crazy and all the builders are all booked up. Gather all your info and do the research before buying and then negotiate on selling priceS

If you’re buying it, live in it for a while, and then get a feel for what you want to do but do the actual building work at a later date

The plot is too small for any kind of extension. It would be an unbalanced space if you did anything.

Put a nice garden room in. You could have a lovely play area with big open doors and entertainment space for spring summer autumn and even winter if it's done well enough. Much cheaper than a extension and takes less room.

@porridgecake

Convert the garage and build a room above it. Loads of houses near me have done this and it seems to work very well.

Bedrooms above garages tend to be cold. They’re also usually very long and narrow and don’t feel like decent sized bedrooms which tend to be more square.

The house previously had a conservatory which has been removed, I noticed.
It's a pretty reasonable size for a 3 bedroom family house, ours is similar.
If you need a room for an office you could partition the garage. Or could there be room for a garden cabin? Our house is a similar layout, we just put the washing machine in the garage but I wouldn't want to lose the storage of the garage overall.
The garden slopes down to a road, to level it you would need to build a retaining wall on the boundary which is £££.

I really like this property and think you can do a lot with it.

If you do the side extension and don't need the garage I would be inclined to take number 11s genius floorplan with garage/ utility and instead turn it into a
Bootroom -> home office-> utility.
I saw a garage extension converted like this and it was the first time i saw a garage extension and didn't think "this is shit and a bit pointless"
It used pocket doors to access the "office" in the middle which had build in units so the desk hides away and is a clean lined empty room when not in use.

The pic is a bad example.

Is it me or does the satellite view show a conservatory? Only 2 houses of that brick colour on the close and both have conservatories.

Like a pp said the only niggle might be the shared drive and guest parking.

I think I'd only consider it if you wanted it as is. It is not a house with development potential. Loft conversion is probably a non starter due to pitch of roof, truss arrangement and space for stairs to access. Garden too small to build into. Garage conversion possible, but second storey doesn't look feasible without losing a whole heap of bedroom space for access.

Having said all that, it looks like a perfectly adequate house as is for bringing up 2 children in to me.