To extend or to sell?

[Beginneratlife]

First time poster, so please be kind :-)

We've been struggling to decide whether to extend our house or sell and move.

We live in a Hertfordshire commuter town and we love the area (close to family and friends, great amenities for kids, good community here). We have 1dc and hope to have on one more in time.

I want to stay in this area but DH is much more ambivalent. He likes it too, and agrees the area gives us a good life for the reasons mentioned above, but isn't sure that the area is a good investment. We can't really afford the kind of family home we want here as prices are very high.

We have a small "starter home" which we are planning to extend. (I appreciate how extremely lucky we are to have this. We worked and continue to work hard for it, but we're also extremely fortunate to have had some family help for the deposit some 6 years ago. Not everyone is as fortunate. The property prices are definitely broken, at least in this part of the world).

Doing the extension means borrowing a large chunk from the bank to add onto our existing mortgage.

This is not our "dream home". It will be much more spacious and pleasant to live in once we extend, especially if we have a second DC. It still probably won't be somewhere we want to stay forever.

The extension will increase the value of the property - but possibly less than what we are putting in. We are mostly doing this to make life more comfortable now (some work desperately needs doing anyway cos of damp).

Are we crazy to borrow money to extend something which is not our dream house? I hate the idea of tying ourselves in to yet more debt but also really want to stay in this area because of family and friends - and we can't afford anything much better around here if we were to sell. What would you do? TIA.

Are you thinking of moving to a different area and keeping your mortgage roughly the same?

The problem with moving is that it is hugely expensive and disruptive just in a different way from the way extending is expensive and disruptive. Also your new house will undoubtedly have its own problems which you would have to fix which will also be expensive and disruptive.

I am not a believer in 'forever homes'. Circumstances change, life gets in the way. You only realise somewhere is a forever home when you have lived in it forever.

We had been planning to downsize from the house we are in now as our DCs are now adult and starting to move out. Instead we extended as we realised that having more space would benefit as DCs come back to visit with their partners and maybe GCs in the future.

I dont think there is a right answer.

Thank you GnomeDePlume. That really helps. I do think you are right - the concept of a forever home is flawed. I reckon once we extend we may stay longer than we expect anyway, in part due to the costs of moving you mention!

I reckon if we moved we would need to borrow similarly from the bank as to extending, and likely have to move to a cheaper area to get a "dream home" (whatever that is).

t least if we extend we know that we can stay in the area we like for longer (even if it might not be the best financial investment). We will also know that the work will (hopefully) be done to a good standard.

You want to stay in the area now
So it is good investment
For now and next few years

I can see your dilemma, have property’s close by had the extension you are thinking of adding if so, what have they achieved price wise. Add into the mix that getting trades at the moment is hard and materials have soared in price. So the extension would cost more than a few years ago. Plus you would have the inconvenience of living there whilst the works commence. Do you need the extension now or could you wait a year or two?

If you decided to move, still a lot of inconvenience, what are prices of properties that you want size wise, compare to the build cost, but factor in distance from work, family, convenience etc. You won’t be happy if you have the right sized home in the wrong area. Do a lot of desk research and to work out the best option.

I totally agree with PP, the term forever home is completely unrealistic, circumstances change, health changes.

Good luck with your decision.

Thanks a lot for the helpful comments all! We will almost certainly do the extension based on the research we have done. It's really good to know that others also think there is no such thing as a forever home. Life can't be planned to that extent!

It is well worth really sitting down and putting some good hard thought into what you want from your extension. We went through many iterations, sketching different things out.

Ours is a simple single storey extension. All it did was add one more room but that extra room has given us a much larger sitting room, kitchen and dining room. It also gave DS a much larger bedroom.

I think a house is more than a financial investment. We've lived in houses that have financially given us a real return (probably economy at the time) but never wanted to settle there.

The part of your post that strikes a chord is when you say the area gives you a good life. We have that now too in the area we've moved to, and I wouldn't move areas just because it would make us a few more thousand in the long run. If you have friends / family / good schools etc, that is worth more for me. I'd extend and see what happens in the long run.

We had this debate.

We decided to do a live it or list it type thing. We got plans drawn up with an architect and figured out a budget.

We then went to look at various houses in the area.

What we found was that either we didn't like the areas or the house would still need work to get us what we already had at home.

The plans were so awesome as well. We were able to plan a house that was amazing for us.

We decided to extend. It's been hard work, but I love our house and we're not moving now. The house is gorgeous.