Is it a good or a bad time for having an extension done?

[Curiossir]

Hi! Anecdotally, I have been told that labour and material prices are at a peak at the minute and that it may be the wrong time to do a build (quotes are around 120-150k). Does anyone have any experience or opinion?
Thanks!

Well, I don't think they'll drop. The price is what it is. Just make sure you get at least 3 quotes.

If only everyone had a crystal ball 😂

There's no wrong time or right time, only what's wrong or right for you - do you need the work to take place as soon as possible ? do you have the money / can you afford it? could you afford it if prices will continue to rise?

Prices are more expensive than they have been in the past.

I wouldn't be expecting them to drop anytime soon though....

Currently renovating a house myself, no extensions though.

Prices rarely go down

We got 1 quote just to get a ballpark figure and it came in at 200k - 220k. We're going to take our chances and wait it out a bit longer.

Having an extension built has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with interest rates.

Interest rates fluctuate but the price of an extension is the price. It's like expecting plumbers and gardeners and accountants prices to be lower in the future if interest rates fall! It doesn't happen.

Yes, I think I may give it a few months. To answer the queries above, we are in no particular hurry and I would need to borrow maybe 30k. We have a mortgage left of 45K so it would take that to 75K with maybe 20 years to go.

We've missed the boat for reasonable extension prices.

We bought this house in 2021 and planned to extend at some point but we've spoken to a few estate agents and they have said that the work we'd be doing (adding a single story 3x6m box on the back of the house) that would cost 130k + 20% contingency would only add c 50k to the house value.

We've decided to hang it out in this house for a few more years and move.

We had an extension done in 2005. It was a two storey extension on two sides of the house (so effectively two extensions) plus a large orangery at the back. It cost £60k

We had an extension done in 2021 (different house same area). It was a single storey extension on the back of the house plus a similar sized orangery. It cost almost £300k. Work involved in both was similar.

Prices don't ever go down once they're up.

In addition to affordability, it all depends on your house value and the scope for losing or making money. It’s difficult to add value to most of the U.K. housing stock at today’s prices, unless you live in a high housing price area or have very high level of equity (and not near retirement).

I think we will see fewer people extending for this reason.

Bloody hell!

Case in point!

Just had an extension, completed 9 months ago. It was not worth the money we paid (price kept going up as we waited) for the extra space we have got. BUT it was the option we took because we didn't want to leave the area, we couldn't afford to move to a bigger house in the area, and we needed the extra room. We also had to do something because the house was neglected as it was. We knew we had the money and even if I personally would rather have spent it on holidays abroad it was the right decision for our family at that time and until DD leaves home. I'm sure we haven't added the amount of value it cost to the house! But if you count living in it happily for another 12-15 years then that's OK.

Whether it is a good or bad time is dependent on your personal circumstances, but it is not currently cheap that's for sure.

The project we're currently working on is coming in under the QS costing we got in Q3 2021 - that's across both labour and materials. We're around 85% complete.

That's insane. There are a lot of builders out there getting very very rich! Labour and materials costs have gone up, but not by that much.

Our work (wraparound first-floor extension on top of existing ground-floor + small rear infill) is starting in April and the difference in quotes we got was VAST, some coming in at 150% more than others. It's definitely not a time for the inexperienced renovator who's not savvy enough.

Costs don't seem to be going down round here but we are finding that suddenly a lot of highly regarded contractors have availability opening up - people who were couldn't even get round to do a quote last year are now falling over themselves to get work from us. Sounds like a lot of people have decided to hold off on their plans.

I would say labour/ materials / equipment availability is good at the moment which should not be discounted as a factor. Hard to imagine prices going down and if they did pent up demand could cause jams in the system again. It is expensive though and questions need to be asked about whether the plans are worth it for the house. Maintenance work and remodelling on that side should never be neglected if possible as it depreciates your main asset and gets hard to come back from. Adding space needs to be thought through well, breaking even in the short term is likely but that could be worth it for you to get what you want. It depends on the motivation, if it’s to add value that is a tough game to be in for most at the moment and most likely in the future.

I don’t really see how it’s worth it now unless the house prices in the area are high/ price per square foot is very high.

I can see costs coming down as builders eventually reduce their margins, it seems they have been very high lately!

But maybe I’m delusional

i can’t see costs coming down unless the government put trades on the shortage workers list and offer visas to get housebuilding going again in this country. England is SO far behind housebuilding targets that it’s likely that trades can emigrate here in the near future. If there’s enough of them, it could bring building costs down (just like when Eastern Europeans came to the UK)