Extension

[SA08]

Hi everyone

I know there have been a lot of threads asking this question, but I can’t find any more recent ones.

We’re now at the stage where we are considering whether to get an extension or move to a bigger house (current house set up doesn’t really work anymore with our growing family). Personally I’m of the opinion that we should get the extension instead of moving, due to the increased interest rates and the size of the mortgage we would need to take to get the house that we would move for. Plus the cost of stamp duty, moving fees, solicitor fees, survey fees all of which you never get back. We live in a really good area, with great schools, and access to all sorts. It is however a semi detached house (so a cap on what we would potentially get back from doing the extension) and we’d only consider moving to a detached house.

In order for us to do the extension we would need to remortgage to get the money for it plus use some of our savings.

The size of the work, would be a rear and side return extension (about 20 square meters) a new kitchen, as well as turning our current dining room space into a small toilet downstairs and a small utility room, which would then flow into the kitchen extension. Hopefully what I’ve described makes sense!

We’re based in Yorkshire and was hoping anyone with similar experience could let me know the general cost of this type of work and your experience?

Thanks very much

Also the stress of moving needs to be considered!!

...and don't forget the stress of taking on a building project. Do you plan to live there while it's going on? No right or wrong answer, but living there will add time and inconvenience.

I may be biased by my current situation (mid-renovation), but if I had my time again, I'd probably sell and move on.

On the financial side, yes, the new mortgage would cost more, but so would the additional mortgage, and you'd be losing the interest on your savings. You'll never get all of your money back in terms of the value of the house, so the decision needs to be mainly driven by non-financial factors IMO.

Maybe have a look around to see what detached properties are available, and if there isn't anything decent that you can afford, renovating may be the best option. But you might just find something great that would work for you.

I would not care so much about whether I would recoup my money when it comes to sale time as money spent on building work and/or renovations is rarely fully recovered by an increase in value. Makes the house more desirable and easier to sell (hopefully, depends on what you are doing and how it is done) but as to increasing the value........
We have always done things based on what WE want and whether it will work for US while we are living there.

I see you would like to buy a detached at some point and THAT is where my focus would be as even with all the work done, you are still attached to someone else. If you would like to do something about this at some point then is it worth the hassle and expense of the building work?

Thanks so much for the helpful comments.

if it was up to me we would stay in our house long term, we are in a very desirable road and area and houses don’t come up very often because if it. I caveat that by saying I’d only stay if we did the extra building works. The detached house is driven by my husband and I can completely see where he is coming from a as his reasoning is we are ultimately attached to someone else when you’re spending so much to extend the house.

We have viewed two detached houses already, both however were just under a million and needed mountains of work done, both needed top to bottom renovations (including rewiring etc) as well as new kitchens and extensions. It’s quite shocking the state of the houses that are being sold for that price and coupled with cost of renovating we just couldn’t justify it. I ultimately don’t want to leverage ourselves to buy the detached house to essentially be stuck not being about to renovate it for the next 10 years potentially (much like I think is what happened to the owners of the second house we viewed).

you could say we should just look at cheaper houses, but we really do live in a house and area that you don’t move from unless (in our opinion) would be to the big beautiful detached house. The problem is that all of these detached houses coming up are really expensive and all need a lot of work done to them. Honestly every single one that has come up is in an absolute state. You of course get the done up detached houses but those are up for millions and completely way way out of our budget.

@ClematisBlue49 i completely see your point on how hard it must be living through a renovation, we renovated our house (everything but the kitchen extension) and lived in the house while it was being done, which was fine actually, however we didn’t have our pets and kids at the time, so much easier and I’d imagine having no kitchen for months would be hard. If we did our kitchen extension we would need to live in our house for the majority of the work.

Can anyone please provide some insight into how much our renovation described above may cost? I completely appreciate it would just be rough estimates.

We live in a 1930s style 3 bed semi so not dissimilar to you, and financially the leap to a 4 bed detached is too much for us in this area. We also chose to extend. We added about the same amount of space as you plan to, but just to the rear, not to the side - basically a box on the back of the house with a pitched roof and turning the old kitchen into a downstairs loo and utility area.

It cost way more than it would have done pre-Covid. We have no tradespeople in the family so had to get the builders to do everything. We went with the middle of our five quotes, and the bottom three were not far out from each other. The build alone (to a plaster finish, not including decorating) was about £60k plus VAT (so about £72k). Then there’s the cost of kitchen, utility, loo, flooring, decorating if you don’t want to do it yourself, new appliances, etc. All in all, we spent just over £100k. That was with a DIY Kitchens kitchen and utility. We did splash out on quartz worktops and have Amtico flooring but it would not have been possible for us to have reduced costs by much more.

For us, it’s been worth it as it has transformed how we use the house. But the stress was considerable (we lived in), and it was very expensive. For us, we could also convert the loft even at 2023 prices and it would still be cheaper than moving to a detached house. But that doesn’t apply to everyone and if you’re even considering moving, I would strongly recommend throwing all your money at the move rather than improving your current house.

Thanks @WhoHidTheCoffee that is super helpful

We spent 200k on renovating 5bedroom house. About half of that was the extension and putting garden back after the work and new kitchen etc.

that was pre pandemic prices and build in covid. I was shocked by a recent quote a friend had for 2 storey extension, 250k.

I would stay and extend your house if you have a lovely safe friendly road especially if your immediate neighbours are nice. You need to think about how you would feel if you moved and had awful neighbours. A detached house is not always better, your happiness should be the top priority.

I agree @LindaDawn!

it really is more convincing my husband. We’ve had a few estate agents come and value our house and all of them have basically said your house has gone up in quite a bit of value, but they wouldn’t suggest we do the extension, because although it would be great and make the house more sellable we would lose money.

That is the sticking point for him. I’m never sure if the EA would try and persuade you not to do the work so that they could sell your house as opposed to missing out on a sale because we decided to extend and live in our house much longer.

I think if we did the extension it would change his view on the house and he would want to stay, but equally who knows.

I’m more of the opinion we should stay out for financial reasons (nursery fees, far bigger mortgage if we moved, stress of moving, cost of moving, I’m just coming out of mat leave etc). The extension would be expensive but far more doable than a bigger house and we are genuinely in one of the nicest roads in the city we live in.

But I do equally see the stress and strain of an extension!

We had similar size extension 2 years ago with a new kitchen, 2 sets of bifold doors, skylights and one giant wall spanning window. All in we spent £180k but that does include everything, light switches, new fuse box, all paint and finishes etc, architect etc.
It really bloody spiralled, we had budgeted £100k but we were stuck in the time where loads and loads of supply issues following covid and that was driving prices up for everything like plasterboard etc. hopefully that's all settled now!
We're in West Midlands

@TiredInPerpetuity wow! That is a lot! I’d definitely not want to spend that much. Although you window wall sounds amazing.

We did have to have a fair amount of steels put in which bumped it up. There were things I could've cut back on but I didn't want to have that sort of outlay and not love the result. I entered what I call a state of "fuck it".

It's been so worth it though. We use the kitchen so much; we spend 70% of our time at home in there. There are some days we don't go into living room at all which is lovely because it stops the kids zoning into the tv. We don't have a tv out in that space just a speaker so we have discos after dinner. I don't think I'd change it. Just build in a bit of a contingency to whatever budget you decide to set. It was my first time having any major work done and I was woefully unprepared for how much things cost (kitchen cupboard handles being my biggest shock!)

@TiredInPerpetuity , I love your phrasing and completely identify with entering a state of “fuck it” 😂

The stress of an extension is time limited but a house move could take a long time especially in this market. And yes it’s not in an estate agents interest for you to stay and extend. A house is for living in and if you plan to stay there cos everything else is right about the house then that is of immense value to u as a family. We moved from an amazing semi detached instead of extending to a detached house just cos I felt that was what we should do, I missed my old house and how amazing it could have been, the road and friendly neighbours for years and still occasionally think about it 33 years later!

@TiredInPerpetuity I totally get what you’re saying. On the one hand my husband is i don’t want to spend loads of money on an extension but on the other hand he’s like im not doing it unless we do a really great job! So I can see how you get to a state of fuck it.

We’d be exactly the same with the use of the kitchen. We cook a lot and are big foodies. I do feel very separated from the rest of the family while cooking as I do the majority of it and our kitchen is completely separate from the living area. We also have a lovely garden which we hardly use because the kitchen backs on to it but with no windows or door facing it if that makes sense.

@LindaDawn thats very helpful

honestly I'm in the fuck it state so frequently it's more of a lifestyle at this point! Better for us than stressing though (I like to tell myself)

We've had a similar dilemma after getting quotes for the extension we'd planned, we did take a look at how much it would be to move instead.

But we have decided to crack on with the extension. Builder is 69k (including VAT but not kitchen, flooring etc) and work is starting in September.

Currently in complete denial about how stressful it is going to be 😅 trying to focus on how nice it will be once it's done. We truly love this house for the garden, not overlooked at the back, lovely quiet road etc. Basically things we knew we couldn't fix with moving on top of the space we wanted.

Also in Yorkshire!

Thanks @ViscountessBridgerton! That price sounds a lot more doable. Would you mind sharing details of the builder just in case we live in roughly the same area? Happy for you to PM me, although absolutely fine if you would rather not.

@SA08 yes no worries will PM you 😊

One thing to factor into the cost is how much will the extension add value to the property?
Does your area have ceiling prices on property?
If you love your house and it is your forever home then I would be more inclined to get the work done - if you plan to only stay there for a few years then I would consider bringing the move forward.

As much as it is stressful moving… it can also be stressful living on a building site. We did a full renovation of our property about 15 years ago now and we lived onsite throughout all the works as it would be more expensive to move out.
It’s also the inconvenience of having a builder or contractors work around your ‘life’.

Do what is right for you but weigh up all the costs involved.