To take on a renovation with a baby

[DogAndWineLover]

Hi everyone,

Just after some perspective and advice really. Please don't slate me, I know how fortunate we are to be in this position.

We moved 17 months ago from London to what we thought would be our forever home in Hampshire. We are happy here but there are factors that we would change if the opportunity arose (currently on a busy road, north facing and in quite a dark property). Since moving, we've had a baby, I've been made redundant and mortgage repayments have increased.

A property has come up nearby that's in a quieter location and, on reflection, probably a better fit for us long term. It's smaller and more affordable but would need to be extended to work for us (large two bed, currently in a five bed).

My questions are;

1. How much roughly is a full attic conversion these days?

1. Has anyone downsized with a baby and done a slow renovation over time? Is it complete chaos?

1. Does anyone know what happens if you buy a property for less than your current mortgage? Is it an enormous amount of money to pay an early repayment fee?

1. Am I entirely nuts?

The other house is in a good condition so would not need significant structural improvements.

Thank you!

1. The cost of a conversion depends massively on the type of house and type of conversion- eg will it include a bathroom, is the ceiling height OK to meet regulations etc? Do your neighbour's want their .own independent party wall surveyor (you wild have to pay)
2. We had to live through an attached neighbour's renovation witha vwry small child during WFH and it was hell. Didn't help that our neighbours went back to where they were originally from for the duration and ruined our roof.
3. Early repayment charge depends on your mortgage, the duration of the fix etc.

No one can answer these questions without more detail.

How big is the loft?

What does it say in your mortgage contract regarding early repayment fee. How long was it fixed for? How many years remaining?

We moved to a 2 bed bungalow with a 3year old and I had ds a year later. 3 yr old had her own room and baby's cot was in our bedroom.

We started a loft conversion in September when baby was about 3 months old and dd had started school so was always out for most of the noisy dusty work. It was also made that bit easier as baby wasn't mobile yet. We got all work done up to plaster finish and bathroom fully fitted. We did the decorating ourselves. It was slower as one of us had to be with baby and so in between naps and after bedtime in the evening. The loft main building work is very quick though and not as disruptive. Cost about £2300 per sqm back in 2021/22.

Item 3, not sure. I remember when we moved, we ported our mortgage but we were borrowing more. I remember our bank not allowing porting for less than the amount owed so I'm assuming a remortgage in that scenario and ERC payments.

If you borrow less then you have to repay and get a new mortgage and the early redemption charge is is normally something stupid like ten percent of the remaining balance that you have to pay. So if your current mortgage is £100,000 you will have to pay them £10,000 for a early redemption .

We've done some renovation with a young toddler. Ours was only the bathroom and was a bit of a pain because water/heating off plus all the dust, mess and noise. I spent hours and hours out the house as dd didn't like the banging. The banging eoke her from naps. Naps downstairs in the living room instead of her cot in the bedroom. Keeping her in 1 room was a pain as she was mobile and going through a velcro stage so going to the kitchen ect was a nightmare as i was followed everywhere. Our builder and plumber used to leave doors open/ tools all over and be in and out constantly so it was a bit of a hazard.

Going upstairs for things like changes of clothes or needing a wash after a poonami was hard work as the workmen were upstairs.

Cleaning stuff down everyday was a pain. Dd was in the everything in the mouth phase too and everything just used to get covered in dust so needed wiping down everyday. The dust travels all round the house too.

Luckily my parents live nearby so we escaped to thier house in the day. We paid tradespeople to do it for us and it was a pain but over in 2 weeks - it was a very long 2 weeks though. Then paid for a professional clean after. I wouldn't want to live in a building site for months.

One of our friends with a baby had an extension done and after 2 weeks they moved out as it was just too much.

It depends on scale of work, a month of renovation contained in 1 room I could live with. A full attic conversion or renovation of multiple rooms with small dc and I would move out. If you need water, heating or electricity off for more than a couple of days you will need a space to escape to (friends/grandparents), no water or electricity for more than a few hours is hard. No heating isn't so bad in the summer months.

We did a loft conversion in 2022 when DD1 was around 1yr. It overran (obviously) and i did have to take her to my parents for 3weeks at the start when they were doing the really messy work / installing the steels, but it was still very stressful. Poor DH stayed at home to be available for any decisions. It isn't something i would ever do again. We had to have the 1st floor ceilings lowered to get the head height in the loft so the rest of the house ended up with stuff everywhere, even though we put as much as we could in storage. It was also around the time she was getting more mobile and there was so much dust. 😩 I couldn't relax due to all the hazards around and was convinced the Health Visitor was going to want to visit and be horrified!! We all ended up sleeping in the same room for a while as well, which was disruptive for us all.

Ours was in London and was around 80k in the end? No idea how that compares to elsewhere and obviously 2022 was a funny year for building due to post pandemic supply chains anyway.

Although it has made things easier and we love the loft room, im not sure i would do it again on our house now. Given how the market has changed, i think i would to try and find somewhere that met our needs without need to do such a big amount of work (I've told DH - superficial decorating only next time round!!).