Loft extension in se London?

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we’ve recently bought a bit of a doer upper. Lady had been living there for 30 years and has not done any maintenance bar the odd bit here and there. Needs at least full cosmetic refurb, plus windows etc

thinking about a loft extension as quite a few if the neighbours have them.

anyone have a rough ballpark? I think would need a new roof, so could get a big dormer while we’re on to create a big living space for Ds’s teen years.

also if we did the loft would that make the house unbalanced? It would mean 2 doubles, 1 single bedroom, family bath, then the large loft and en suite. Downstairs has a small kitchen off the dining room, and a living room. I see property guides saying you need downstairs living space to match the bedrooms?

Opinions welcome, thanks.

I’ve been getting informal quotes for 1 bed dormer with en-suite in South London. £65K. We don’t have that budget so looking to do a skylight conversion to make a legal 3 bed which will still be around £30k.

4 years ago we were quotes 70k for a dormer hip to gable bedroom with en suite (loft of a small semi in zone 3). Prices have gone up since then..

Hello, quotesd in north London for £65k for what your describing. wouldn’t worry about house being unbalanced, this set up is so common in London

We did ours in 2022 in SW London and it was around £85k all in (including lowering all ceilings on the middle floor to give the head height for the regs in the loft, which also meant the entire middle floor needed redecorating as well due to the mess made when moving the ceilings. It also included replacing the existing bathroom as well as installing the ensuite). This was peak post covid boom so it doesnt surprise me if prices are a bit lower since then but i dont know for sure. We have a similar downstairs layout to how you describe and yes its a little unbalanced (we are planning a small kitchen extension this year, which i think will help), but the extra upstairs space has far more benefits. We would have had to move after having our 2nd DC without doing the loft so weve been very happy to be able to stay put.

Thank you all.

pleasantly surprised at costs. A neighbour 3 doors down had theirs done in early 2023 and they said it ended up around 90k. I know it was a full roof retile, and I think they needed their boiler moving, but that seemed a lot of money. It is a big space though and doesn’t feel like a loft due to the big dormer.

it did have planning permission for a downstairs extension too, but I think that’s expired. It would be a big expenditure and wouldn’t increase the value of the house to cover the money spent. One of those things though as the state of the house means new kitchen, windows, possibly electrics etc, so if we do decide to extend no point doing the refurb until the building work is done, but then we’d have to live with a really shitty bathroom, draughty windows and whatever.