Realistic budget full renovation + side extension and loft conversion London

[3bedterrace]

Hi! We are looking to upsize and a couple of 3 bed terraced houses in the perfect location are now on the market. We have never entertained the idea of starting a project and are very wary of rise in cost of labour and materials, yet are wondering: how much would a full renovation + extension cost on average in South West London these days please?

200k?
100k side return kitchen extension.
50k renovation
50k loft

Yes, I was going to say approaching £200k too.

I'd say the £200k would need VAT added. So more like £240k. If the lift needs a bathroom too, £50k is pushing it. You'd need contingency for things that crop up you just can't know about yet.

*loft

I think that’s a bit low. We’re paying £75k for our loft (including windows and bathroom fittings) and house renovation is also about £70k not including hardwood flooring (North London).

Obviously depends on the extent of work needed and specification.

Similar to post above, our best basic loft quote for bedroom, en suite and study room was just over £60k (finishes/bathroom fittings etc to be added). In North London.
Extension and renovation really depends how big it is and how much structural work is required…

I would say that is low. Different build here but to include full renovation of existing i would think you are approaching £300k.

We have extended 6m x 11m double storey with very easy access and a small amount of reno and we will be well over £400 when done. Initial quote was £228. Prices have rocketed and labour is very very expensive.

Some of the estimates are definitely low in my experience. My brother lives in SE London. They were hoping to get a big standard loft conversion and small extension on their kitchen for £150k and were told by a friend in the trade (an actual friend) that they'd be unlikely to get both for that amount at the moment with the cost of labour and materials and that the loft alone would probably be £150k. A couple of years ago, it would have been a different story.

Veeeery low!! We’ve bought a house needing full renovation N London. We’re just doing the side return/kitchen extension and windows initially and all in we expect to spend 200k.

at the end of that we’ll have a house that still needs the bathrooms renovating and all rooms fully redecorating. The garden will also be a total disaster zone post building work. All of that will cost a lot more than you think. Eg garden £20k, decorating the hallway and stairs £5k, bathrooms £10k each… so we’ll spend upwards of £300k I think all in (and we don’t need a loft conversion). It’s a big house though. What’s your square footage?

We did side return + new kitchen, upgrade of existing downstairs loo, loft conversion comprising of 2 beds + shower room + utility closet + balcony/terrace, full interior repaint, exterior woodwork painted, new wall in the front garden, new patio in the back garden. Finished 6 months ago, also in SW London. 275k.

@AlmostOver22 112 sqm before extensions

Kitchen-diner rear extension plus full renovation of house on 3 bed semi in SW London cost £150k in 2019.
Have had house valued since and work definitely worth what we put in.

Materials so much more expensive/ difficult to source now, as are good builders. I would think doing such a project now will be much more expensive and stressful than it was a few years ago. Not to be a downer but just being honest! Best of luck with it though.

We are effectively working our way through this project at the moment. Our 3 bed terrace (now 5 after the loft conversion) already had the side return done but it’s been done badly by previous owners so we are going to need to redo it to some extent. Luckily the house was livable and we moved in before DC so we’ve been able to do it bit by bit and do some of the easy things ourselves.

We paid £65k for our loft conversion (2 bed, one bath) in SW London at the end of last year/ beginning of this. By the time we’d paid for a decorator and sanitaryware it was more like £80k.

Last week we had quotes for redoing a bathroom and bedroom which involves moving a boiler and closing off a doorway - £20-30k before sanitaryware, tiles and flooring so more like £25-35k.

We’ve saved money by painting/putting up shelves etc ourselves. But we’ve spent maybe another £20k on flooring, some fitted wardrobes and cabinets, a new fireplace and decorating.

So we are at around £130k with the stairs still to restore, the kitchen to redo, more storage to sort, the garden to rescue from its rundown state and the downstairs loo and shower room to move around and decorate. I reckon we’ll easily spend another £100k+ on all that.

So if it’s really a full renovation I’d say £200k is a low but not impossible budget.

if it’s a terraced house, don’t forget to factor in the cost of party wall surveyors for either side of the house you are extending. In an ideal world, you all use your surveyor but each affected neighbour is entitled to appoint their own (at your expense) and they can also set the working hours of your contractors. If there is limited parking/on a red route be prepared for some contractors not to want the job or to price it prohibitively. It is a contractors market at the moment.

I renovated (no extension) 5 years ago and including furniture it was about £80k. New kitchen, new bathroom, new ground floor toilet, garden front and back, installation of chimney liner and fireplace, and lots of other bits and pieces. We did a small amount of the work ourselves (some painting and decorating). Furnishings and furniture were medium budget - we didn't go for cheapest options but didn't go crazy on designer stuff either.

Now we are looking at doing the loft - it will probably be around £100k all in I imagine (but slightly more expensive due to having to lower ceilings). Will get two double bedrooms and a showerroom.

We also plan to do the side return and remodel the ground floor, I don't expect much change from £100k once everything has been done (we will need some new kitchen appliances and units, bifolds, new flooring). Obviously we have not done things very efficiently as we should have done the side extension when we did the house renovation 5 years ago but we couldn't afford the extension at the time and needed to make the house livable because I was pregnant at the time. I recommend if time permits taking things slowly, making do, and doing each part properly. It's cheaper in the long run. It probably makes sense to do the loft first though as the roof is normally very leaky and at least you won't waste money on patching it up if you go straight for the loft conversion.

Therefore I think you're probably looking at around £200-250k including cost of kitchen, furnishings, furniture etc to do a complete renovation and the extension work.

NB I am more south London, nice but not fancy area. Not SW. I imagine it's a bit more expensive in the slightly posher areas.

£400k on a renovation plus extension is only worth it if the value of houses on that street is similar to the price of the finished article. Otherwise, it is a waste of money.

My loft conversion quote came in at £90k, in London zone 2. L-shaped dormer with en-suite. This was in 2021. In 2019 we’d had an estimate of £55k for it but the pandemic hit just as we prepared to start. The increase was all materials (mainly roof) and labour. We wound up putting our place on the market instead.

Friends of ours have just done this for £420k. Very large kitchen extension and 4 stories of renovations. Very worth it for them though.

My best friend was planning a small kitchen extension and refurb on her bungalow.

They've ended up doing just the refurb and not the extension as it was taking them over budget which was £180k. They are still going slightly over.

I have also heard of loft conversions going from £55k to £80k.

Just crazy!

Given that for us a basic 6x3m single storey extension (outside of London) is coming in between £50-65k in our quotes so far I think some of these estimates are optimistic! We took on a doer upper and our experience so far is take how much you think it will cost and then double it. Ditto timeline for completing any job. 😅

SE london. We’ve just had a loft quote of 65k, excl bathroom suite and tiles, so likely nearer to 80k all in. Friends had an identical loft done in 2020 for 55k.

Crazy how prices have increased in only 2 years! Some of you spoke about doing it in phases and I wondered if there is a way to renovate a house as it is and add the kitchen diner extension at later stage? Will you need to wait for the extension to be done to install the kitchen or are there designs allowing you to do it in 2 phases?

You can do the loft first (that is best) and then the ground floor / other work at a later date. Loft work may cause damage elsewhere so I think it's best not to decorate other areas of the house first, if starting from scratch. A loft is also quite a commodified building project so hopefully not too difficult to get quotes for. Anything unusual is a nightmare for getting quotes in.

@TheLette starting to put all numbers together and it looks like we are going to look at roughly 360k (no contingency, just average costs)…so exactly the same price of fully renovated houses on the same road 🤨