We bought our house in 2010 and made a really good pick on area and it's more than doubled in value and the mortgage is nearly paid off. Great London street, quiet, know the neighbours, DD2 has her 2 best friends within 2 mins walk, good schools for both kids and very near lots of train stations. The house has big bones and is wide for a London terrace but with a relatively small garden and a roof construction (a butterfly roof) which doesn't lend itself to easy extension upwards. No one has ever done it on the street.
We really need an extra bedroom-cum-study and a second bathroom. Would be keen on a bigger kitchen (we never did the side return although the kitchen and breakfast room is relatively large for a terrace). Bigger garden would be great but not essential. Current bathroom is tiny.
House is under offer from a private sale after initially having it on the market last year and it not selling. We cannot find anywhere to move to even at the top of our budget. There is so little on the market. Houses with the room upstairs are small downstairs or vice versa.
But doing the required work to make it a forever home is a real unknown in terms of planning, I'm not sure we will get it for what will essentially be an extra storey on the house and whether we can come in at a reasonable budget- we will need an architect which also freaks me out a bit as they often seem to spec out work that's massively over budget. We're shit at managing builders. But it would save us c. 40k in stamp duty and we keep the location.
Work would take us up to the ceiling value of the street (although would make an even bigger house than that was).
WWYD? DH keen to keep looking but is also much fussier than me. I just want a decision and feels like we're waiting for a house unicorn as the market is so slow. If it picks up and we've done the work we could always sell again later once both kids are in secondary and we can flex more on location.