Are extensions still feasible?

[Beakyok]

We bought our house coming up to 3 years ago, always with the aim to extend it - wrong house, right location etc. We kept a sizeable chunk of money back to help fund the extension and from conversations with several builders at the time, knew we were in budget. However, life struck…Covid, surprise baby, work issues etc and so building plans didn’t happen. We’ve finally managed to get plans drawn up and yes, you’ve guessed it, the quotes have not just doubled, but more than doubled! We expected an increase but not this jump.

So my question is what are people doing? Sucking up the costs in the hope that they won’t have to ever move? Not worrying about going beyond the ceiling price of a house? Deciding it’s cheaper to move than to build? Or just waiting and hoping things calm down next year? It seems such a volatile time to make such an important financial decision.

Unfortunately it seems moving or improving is too expensive atm.
When we bought our first house in the 80s and extended it was in the knowledge that the house wouldn't go up in value by what we paid, that was normal.
For the last 30 years though with rising house prices people have become acustomed to 'making money' by extending

Are you sure you’re up to date with the ceiling price for your street? And have calculated based on how long you can stay. Renovation costs are high right now based on materials and demand, but so are property prices.
we are going to convert our loft and will hope not to lose money by doing so but also not particularly make money either. For us it’s about meeting our own needs.

TBH it's hard to know how often extensions have ever actually made sense in investment terms. Just because you bought for £300,000, spent £50,000 on an extension (for a total spend of £350,000) and sold for £400,000 doesn't mean you made £50,000 profit by building an extension.

We bought our first house for £300,000 and sold it for £400,000 after spending nothing on any kind of home improvement at all, not even decorating.

Some people are obviously finding that doing work makes sense to them at the moment, as otherwise trades wouldn't be so busy, there wouldn't be materials shortages, and prices would be coming down!

I think it depends on your particular circumstances. Is it a long term house? Can you afford the increased price? Can you chip away at the costs by re-jigging any part of it? Do you desperately need the extra space? Would it be cheaper to move to a ready-made house? What is the market like in your area?

I think you have to recognise that its a home as well as an investment so you've got to live - if you can afford it, it's a long term house and you desperately need the space, then I'd be inclined to go ahead and perhaps look to minimise costs in the decor / fittings etc if at all possible. If its just a "nice to have" extension or it would be a struggle / you'd definitely not get an increase in the value of the property to cover what you actually spend, then I might wait a while or look at what it would cost to move.

I have exactly this problem OP (but the extension is to build in order to facilitate my disabled DD). I detest the house and the part of the village it’s in, but bought specifically to extend. Have no idea what to do! It’s more than doubled and aaaargh

Would anyone be prepared to say what sort of prices they've been quoted for particular projects? We're considering making an offer on a house that we would want to extend. Online calculators seem doable but maybe they're out of date for current prices?

@Reallybadidea We've just extended in the SE - a 2mx3m utility, 2x2 bathroom with shower, and a 4x4 reception, so about 25sqm. We had to spend about 10k on removing earth because our house is on a slope, but in total we've spent £100k.

The initial quote was 55k, but didn't include painting (£3k, including the exterior. TBF we could have done this ourselves), flooring (2k), or any doors, windows, radiators, shower, etc - it was just the groundworks, shell, plaster, plumbing, electrics, and roof.

It was meant to take 3 months and we're currently 7 months in, though it has been almost finished for about 2 months now. The last little things have been incredibly painful to get the builders to do.

It's been so much more stressful than I imagined, especially with a toddler and both working full time. We spend all of our free time chasing builders, finding tradespeople, deciding on tiles and radiators and all sorts of other minutia. The building company has been awful and trying to get them to fix issues has been like pulling teeth. If you can live with what you have, I wouldn't recommend extending right now.

I'm moving. Extension costs are more than moving for me. Next step on the rung is 50-60k plus moving costs. Extension 100k. No brainer.

I feel like I've missed the boat. Builders are now booking for 2023 in my area of London and are really not keen on coming out to quote. A few have been on extended holidays when I called and ignored the plans I sent them. The quotes are so high compared to before that I have learned to not get my hopes up.

Thanks for your reply. That does sound like an insane amount per m2. We did an extension about twice the size in 2009 and I think it cost about 60% of that! Not sure I've got the stomach for a renovation project with so much uncertainty over cost.

It’s really interesting to hear of other’s experiences, thank you. I guess my feeling is we’ve missed the boat too! I know a house should primarily be a home, not an investment and I think if we knew it is to be our ‘forever home’ then we’d just go ahead. But we can’t guarantee that for work reasons.

@sarahb083 that sounds so frustrating and stressful that it’s stories like yours makes me think we are mad to even consider extending.

The housing market has gone mad here…the next rung has increased exponentially which limits moving. We bought this house as we couldn’t afford what we wanted in the area but now we’re stuck as we can’t afford to extend it or move to bigger! I wish we had just stretched ourselves 3 years ago!

We bought a project in 2020 and our architect thought £150k to second fix. We started the build in Feb 21 and are now probably 2 months from completion - admittedly we have added to the original brief but our costs are in excess of £400k!! We have added 80% to the house floor space and love what we have achieved but probably not the most cost effective way.

The £50k extension we always planned would probably be closer to £100k now and we just don’t need the space badly enough to justify that expenditure now so have shelved the idea. To move to a ‘better’ house would be closer to £150k extra now thanks to supply and demand so we’ve decided to stay put in our nice enough house and spend the money doing more fun stuff instead because that seems more important now for various reasons.

We have renovated 4 houses and are moving. This time after speaking to builders and friends who have always renovated the consensus is buy something the right size as extending isn't really viable currently.

We are lucky to be able to do a fair bit of the work ourselves as DH was formerly in the building trade.
It will take a bit longer but thats OK as we do not plan on moving again for a very long time, if ever.
I think that the whole extension malarkey is a bit of a joke as architects (at least the ones we spoke to) have no real clue about how much things cost..we had 3 quotes all in the same ball park and the builders all came in at more than double.
Because we have experience we knew the architects were talking nonsense but I really feel for people who have no clue and rely on 'expert' guidance.

Started our build at the end of 2020 and still not finished although the structure is all done and we are about 80% there now (we are currently decorating the original rooms) we added a side extension (knocked down existing garage and rebuilt with a bedroom above. Knocked through the walls at the back of the house to open it up and added big sliders across the back. We went expensive on some things (kitchen) and budget on others (floor) we also landscaped the patio area of the garden and relaid half the drive. Will have cost £300k all in. We originally thought we’d spend between £170k to £200k. We love the area and the garden and now we love the house so it’s been worth it for us and we will stay here long term. We also saw houses sell on the road for about what we have spent so finger crossed we’ve not gone too far over.

My DH has also done a lot himself, he has done all the tiling, installed the en-suite, laid the flooring, he will install our new bathroom, he did 80% of the patio, and has done all the decorating so that has saved us a load of expense.

Got friends in this position, they are unlikely to move for years but the extension costs have tripled.

we got ours priced prepandemic, just finishing it now. We’d have done something half the scale at current costs.

We have planning permission for a 40m2 rear extension ( no kitchen or plumbing involved) and a room above the single garage. The architect said 80k was doable. Builders have quoted 150k with vat. In the North.

We have spent the last three months just stuck in the mud, unsure what to do. That spend on an extension will take over us the ceiling price for the house. But it would make the house more livable for us and our growing teens.
We want to stay in the same village for schools and there is just nothing for sale. And what has been for sale would all need work doing to it even though it's bigger. So we've just decided to bite the bullet and go for what we want.
The galling bit is that we were quoted for the work in 2018 and it was 67k. Should have done it then!

Oh, and the builders have a lead time of about 16 months currently! They're local and have done many extensions in our village so everyone knows their good reputation.
The high prices don't seem to have put off many around here. Every third lamp post has got a yellow paper on it with notice of planning permission.

I don’t think there is such a thing as a ceiling price. Where I live, properties that sold for 400k in 2008 are now selling upwards of 1.5M.

I would give it some time. Wait for cost of living and mortgage increases to bite and the housing market will cool off a lot, as will appetite for extensions and improvements

That is what I am hoping for as well. All those entitled builders who never bothered to take my project seriously will be contacting me themselves soon. Infact, Build Team in SW London are already sending me emails with discounts (but I know they are crap!). I know some material prices have gone up and I will need to pay more than a couple of years ago but unless I was desperate for an extension right now, I would have to be crazy to pay the figures they are literally plucking out of thin air and doubling. If you tried operating like that in a professional environment you would get done. However, they are at liberty to do as they like.

I'm in SE and we're very close to locking down a builder for our 6 m single story extension/renovation and I have to say this has been the most frustrating thing we've had to do and we havnt even started the work yet! Finding a builder who wasn't extortionate plus who was available when we needed and had good recommendations was next to impossible. We've finally narrowed it down to 2 and the quotes for a builders finish are coming to £100k-120k. That doesn't include the cost of kitchen/utility and other fixtures and fittings.

However we are doing it because we love where we live and trying to find something nearby will be impossible.

A 6m square single floor extension? For over 100k? 😱