Extend while you wait for your preferred house

[Poppysocks111]

We’ve been trying to find a better house (bigger rooms, better location, better garden), but can’t find one that suits without significant work and another 100k. Our house is bearable. I’d like a downstairs toilet and shower and more storage.

Has anyone extended while waiting for their preferred house to come up?

I don’t think it’s a good idea personally.

New bathrooms are expensive as is building work and you may well not get the money back when you come to sell.

I would keep saving and looking for a better house. Something will come up eventually though it sounds like compromises will need to be made as what you’re currently looking at doesn’t appear to be in budget.

I, too, would hunt and save money.
What is the most important factor? - location, size, or garden.
Be ready to compromise a little; there is rarely the perfect house.

we’ve been keeping an eye out for over two years now and only seen one that might work, and it added 100k to the mortgage, which was manageable and didn’t have a downstairs shower so still not 100%.

DP thinks if we’re going to compromise on garden/ size/ location somewhere else we might as well stay here where we’re already compromising.

im not sure which is the most important factor, probably size (storage and downstairs shower)

I think with the cost of building work now, it’s probably not a good idea to do extensions etc unless you want to stay for a longer period of time (5 years plus). We extendee and made changes and it’s brought us a lot more time here and in fact we may just stay, but we did it afew years back when building work was cheaper pre Covid.

I agree with everything said above. An extension is not going to be a cheap or easy fix so it has to be something you commit to instead of a move for quite some time. The cost of building has gone up massively - things that you used to be able to do for £50k are now costing almost triple that.

I think DH thinks we’ll never find a house that we like enough so he thinks we should add the downstairs toilet and shower and extend for space and then we we’ll be able to stay for longer

This sounds like a bit of a "love it or list it" situation, where the couples/families do the work and usually decide to stay put for a while to enjoy their new improved house.

Maybe if you speak with a good architect and contractor you could find out what could realistically be done to your current house and then look at the logistics of it (money!). Downstairs toilet is going to add value/saleability anyway surely

Over two years?! Is what you want even available in the location you want at a price you can afford?

This I think is the problem. The housing stock where we want to be is extremely old and limited so unlikely. I’d really prefer a detached house. DH thinks we should redevelop because we might end up staying for much longer while we wait for a better house instead of compromising more. I think he thinks we could stay an extra 5 years if we put in the shower room and extend or until we relocate cities.

@Outnumbered99 it does feel very love it or list it. I think we should move and not do work but then we’ve been stuck for so long because we don’t do work but we can’t find a house

Where I live, £100k doesn’t get you loads more. It would get you an extra bedroom OR a renovated version of what you already have, but it wouldn’t get me more space AND better location AND better decor etc.

Can you afford what you’re looking for?

Yes - wait and make do until you buy better house

No - improve existing house.

If you can’t find a house, it would suggest you can’t afford what you’re looking for, or you’re looking for a needle in a haystack?

i think for 100k we could get better location and a bit more space but then obvs we’d have to plough money in to update.

We had my parents visit for a week last week and I felt awful because the second bedroom is so small and staying in this house won’t give us a better upstairs space.