£70000 for a loft conversion?

[Jajajagi]

We are looking to get our loft converted. We have a 2 bed Victorian terrace and would like an extra room as we our having baby 2 next year.

We would like to have one large room with an ensuite bathroom. The ensuite would need to be a dormer but the main room with just be veluxes in the roof. We also need to change our downstairs stairs around to fit the upper stairs.

We've had 2 quotes:

-one for £68500 Inc vat which doesn't include plumbing, tiles and tiling, bathroom suite, flooring, electrics or the stair construction but does include fitting the stairs. This is a general builder who we've used before and he has done a good job previously.

• one for £65000 + vat which covers everything except bathroom suite and flooring throughout. This builder only does lofts.

Asked about not having the ensuite and the first builder said it would only make about a £4000 difference. Waiting to hear back from the 2nd.

It seems like so much money. Does this sound right or should we get more quotes? It's about 30% of the price of our house and probably wouldn't add the same onto the house price but we need the space and intend to stay here. We have about £30000 savings and would need to borrow the rest.

the costs are actually decent. Chuckling at the couple of posters saying it should be x amount, like they’ve been round and quoted. 😂

whether you make the money back depends on the market. It’s not just about the cost. And why are you doing it, as you want the space and will live there a few years or so you can flip it?

Smug alert — we’re also in the south but near Hastings. Got ours done post Covid for 38k. It’s pretty big with a dormer. That included architect fees, building regs costs, vat. No bathroom as we’ve got two, and it didn’t include cosmetic stuff eg painting and carpets. It took just under six weeks and we were so impressed by how little disruption it caused as they worked entirely from the outside, inly coming into the house in the last week when they put the stairs in.

I wouldn’t use a company that can do parts of the job but not all of it so the builder who won’t do the staircase, don’t use them. We really appreciated being able to get on with work and kids and general life without needing to go back and forth with different companies. DH has really demanding job with international travel and we have three primary DC so just didn’t want any hassle. The loft conversion transformed our lives and was worth every penny so I’d say go for it but choose a company who only specialises in lofts and who’ll do everything including communication with the building regs people.

Mine cost about £80,000 about 6 years ago. SE, roof height increased and replaced, steals put in, stairs, 2 bedroom and 2 en-suites. So yours sounds about right for prices now.

OP, if it’s a two bed terrace, you may not get the £ back if you sell, especially if the bedrooms are not in balance with living space, garden etc.
if you plan staying long term and love the area then all well and good. But, as pp did, it may be better to spend the money on upsizing .

Can I ask if your current layout has a large bathroom and larger bedroom? I saw a great tiktok where they reconfigured the existing layout to take some of the primary bedroom into a bathroom, and converted the bathroom into a 3rd bedroom.

This is the floor plan for what they did, just for an alternative idea.

Yeah I wouldn't pin hopes on making money back.

I need a 4 or 5 bed house, in my price range this either means houses with extensions or conversions. I would say all most all pit houses here have been extended to add kitchen & bathroom. Then some of them added a 4th bedroom or upstairs bathroom in an optional 2nd floor extension, others have gone up into attic and some have done both.

Most don't add a huge amount to the value... as they where done decades ago they probably didn't cost as much as now but theres barely any difference in price between '2nd floor extended and converted' houses and 'just kitchen downstairs bathroom' ones.

Example:

One we looked at had both. It had kitchen and shower room extention down stairs. Then 3 beds (one in a 2nd floor extension) an office and bathroom upstairs. Then a full length attic conversion too (not classified as legally habitable though as it failed on fire doors but fully done out as another living/gaming room). It went on the market at £129k.

The neighbors house has just the basic kitchen and downstairs bathroom option, 2 bedrooms and tiny box room and no attic... it went on for £115k despite being well over 1/3rd smaller in usable space.

Those extensions/conversions clearly would cost well over £14k to do now so did not add anywhere near the cost back in value as it would be to add now.

A extra legal bedroom adds 'up to 15%' to a house value according to stats so to make £70k worth of value back the house would likely need to be over £470k to start with.

Yeah we are in Scotland and our quotes have been close to £100k. It's a hell of a lot of money.

Sounds about right to me. Remember prices are based on the cost of materials and wages, not house prices. My DH is a builder so we can do things at cost only and still we are debating whether it would be cheaper to move for a fourth bedroom or extend/convert the loft.

Sounds about right, unfortunately.
We had a partial loft cinversion and single storey extension around 7 years ago and that came in close to £70,000.
The cost of materials have increased hugely since Brexit, as has the cost of (hard to find) labour costs.

That does sound about right, especially as your house is a Victorian terrace, the roof has to be structurally sound and might be more complicated as it is integral to the whole structure of the terrace building. I think people forgot in the enthusiasm of getting extra space that roofs hold your house up and make sure the walls stay in the right place!

We paid 50k nearly twenty years ago! But that was in a wealthy area of the SE and to be fair, it was a bog conversion with two beds, a bathroom, a proper dog-leg staircase not loft stairs, carpets, tiling to bathroom - the lot.

It costs a lot. But better investment than all the money you'd burn on stamp duty, increased mortgage interest, conveyancing fees etc when moving house to a bigger place.

So how you know the costs are decent if you haven’t been round and quoted either ???

This can’t be a serious question; ? Surely not. Because the costs are fairly average. Obviously.

Neighbours 3 bed semi North Yorkshire. One bedroom and bathroom. Approx £75k I think.

I think two issues. If you plan on staying there long term then to some degree how much value it adds is irrelevant. The value is in the extra living space it gives you.

However if you are planning on moving in the future then maybe it is not so good value. Do you envisage more kids ? How is the rest of the house in terms of facilities ? How are your careers in terms of salary, basically is it likely in the future that you are going to want to upsize ?

I think it is a lot of cost and potentially a lot of disruption. If the room it adds is big in terms of sqr foot then the value is better for resale, but a 2-3 bed terrace is always likely to be a starter home rather than a long term home for most people (maybe London being the exception).

Have you considered moving to another house in the same area of the same type that has had the work done ?

Don't skip the bathroom. It really reduces the sellability of your home. I almost don't consider it to be a usable room if you haven't got a loo on that level, it's just a room in the loft, best for teens or storage. With a bathroom it becomes a proper bedroom suite.

We had a massive dormer loft conversion including roof lift done earlier this year. It was 80k including vat. We are in the Midlands though. I think in the SE/London it would have topped 100k.

I agree, what difference does it make if you get the money back if you intend to stay there, it only matters if you’re intending to sell in the next 5 years. After that the market takes over.

plus aren’t you paying for it, so you can use it? If so don’t skimp on the loo. It will be invaluable, and something you bitterly regret if you don’t get it.

Sounds almost exactly what we were quoted this year for a similar job. We're in the South East of England. I was shocked at the costs. All in with the bathrooms and all finished it was £73k
Cheaper for us to move!

The issue of the cost versus being able to recoup them is very relevant if you’re borrowing against the value of the property e.g. extending mortgage. No lender will give you more than the house will be worth afterwards and it’s irrelevant to them that you’re planning to stay long term.

I paid £55k 7 years ago and it didn't include bathroom suite tiles etc I'd say it was a fair price. Compared to costs of moving it was a better use of money

I think this is good advice for your area. House prices are far lower than in the South East, and yet you're going to be paying the same as that area for a loft conversion.

It might be a good idea to just buy a bigger house.

You're advertising all over the place. Is your husband a roofer (as you claimed on a post relating to a roof) or an all round builder (which you claim on this post)?

Sounds about right. We're in Hampshire and we're quoted similar. It's cheaper for us to move house, so we are!