Loft conversion or buy bigger house?

[sunnyfields25]

Our home is a 1950s three-bed semi with one decent-sized living/dining room and a smallish kitchen. Lovely location, big garden and long driveway. However only one toilet and we're bursting at the seams with two children and all their stuff!

I'd been thinking about a loft conversion, which we could maybe just about manage without needing to borrow extra money. It would give us more rooms upstairs and a second shower room. But would still leave us with a small kitchen and one living space downstairs.

Been to view a four-bed detached house today in the same town and we love it. Location not as good (bit hemmed in), smaller driveway and garden, but it has everything else we need inside. They've had loads of viewings and will be taking best and final offers next week. To stand a chance we'd need to take a second mortgage and the monthly repayments would be approx £250 per month more than we pay now, which makes me uneasy.

Has anyone else been in a similar position of choosing between staying put and converting the loft, versus buying a bigger house? If so, which did you choose?

Thanks 🙂

We bought the bigger house, albeit 13 years ago when interest rates were lower and the job market more stable.

Have friends who live on the street that we used to who have 3 children (we have 2) and have done loft conversion and kitchen extension.

You can make either decision work.

We had loft conversion and it was brilliant and a lot cheaper than moving!

Extending will be cheaper and means you don't have to compromise on location. From what you've said I think you'd be better off extending downstairs rather than into the loft though as you have enough bedrooms and want more living space, and with a big garden you can afford to go out. You could gain a bigger kitchen, extra living space and add in a downstairs toilet (with shower if that's what you need). We have done both - I would say the kitchen extension added far more in terms of useful space than the loft, but we needed to do the loft eventually as we had another child.

I can't understand why you would consider paying more per month plus thousands in moving costs and stamp duty to go to a worse location with smaller garden. You have enough bedrooms already, so do a downstairs extension and add a bathroom/utility.

Thanks for the replies. Sorry I should have explained - although on paper we have enough bedrooms, in reality DD is in the box room which is only really big enough for a bed and chest of drawers. There's a built-in cupboard above the stairs for hanging a few clothes, but access to this rules out a high sleeper bed (which would have given more floor space!). So ideally she needs a bigger room.

DH also mostly works from home, but without a spare room for an office he's stuck at the dining table, which is tricky when the children are at home.

So although I'd love a bigger kitchen, a utility room and a downstairs loo, and there is space outside to extend, I thought converting the loft would create the rooms we're more in need of. I wish we could do both but can't afford it.

I would move and prioritise living space.

loft conversions are ok but limited and not solving your problem here. Also they aren’t saying exactly expensive and can easily go wrong/over budget particularly when adding a shower room.

perhaps the house you have viewed isn’t the one. Maybe something better out there for you.

We also have a 1950s house with two and a half bedrooms and were debating this same thing two years ago. We had already extended our kitchen though so the downstairs living area was plenty big enough. We looked around at houses for sale it would have been more expensive to move especially when you factor in stamp duty.

We went for a loft conversion but that was also on the expensive side, hip to gable and a dormer. It was very disruptive and we had bad luck with the weather and had a few leaks but it is lovely now that it's done.

If you find the perfect house, moving might be best but if not the conversion and an extension might be the better option. It all depends on what else is out there and how much building costs are in your area.

We had similar set up to you and couldn't afford to do both. Box room/bedroom is now office. We have loft bedroom and second bathroom which has worked brilliantly for us.

Kitchen/diner and sitting room are still small, but we have managed pretty well and have used tge garden effectively. Lots of people locally seem to do kitchen extensions/open plan first, but for us (2 kids/2adults) it has worked and continues to work as dcs grow up (eldest is living at home doing a masters so is well set up in the loft for privacy and a bit of separation). I think we may be unusual in that we didn't move to loft, but it felt too far from kids and dog and front door!!

However, I am not sure now that with building costs as they are that it is cheaper than moving and only fractionally less hassle.

Oh and bathroom is not ensuite in loft which was a deliberate choice so people wouldn't be walking through someone's bedroom and guests could use it if needed.

Thanks for all the advice previously given. At one point it looked like we'd solved the dilemma but we're back to not knowing what to do!

We made an offer on the detached 4-bed that we loved, and put our house on the market in the hopes of becoming proceedable. We were up against someone who was ready to move, and although we'd had a couple of provisional offers (from non-proceedable buyers), no formal offers. So the seller understandably chose the other buyers.

Our house is still on the market and we've had a firm offer from proceedable buyers. Just a week too late ☹️ They are aware of our situation but even so I don't want to mess them about. The chances of finding another dream home in the small town we live in are slim.

I thought in this situation we'd go back to the loft conversion plan, but DH is very reluctant. Although we could do a good chunk of the loft with savings, we'd need a second mortgage to do the extras such as air con in the loft, moving the boiler up there, new kitchen and hall, stairs and landing. Kitchen and hall etc have needed doing since we bought the house years ago but we'd been holding off. In the end it will cost as much as buying and moving to the 4-bed detached would have done, so we'll go above the price ceiling for this house. I'd be doing the work to make this a home we can stay in for decades, so the resale value doesn't bother me so much. But DH is talking about selling to buy a bungalow in retirement and concerns about being careful with money. I understand this but I'm early 40s and he's late 30s, so not sure how much weight to put behind that.

Anyway sorry for the waffle. I'm going round in circles so any words of wisdom much appreciated 🙂

Don't lose hope on the detached house as lots of chains never complete (I've read 1/3 on here no idea how accurate) but we had a second bite at a dream house we lost out on first time. Still were outbid the second time sadly but you never know!

A loft conversion is realistically at least 18 months away for you by the time you draw plans and book a builder so I would keep looking in case something else suitable comes up locally.

I don't know how much of a stretch the extra £250pm on a mortgage would be for a bigger home but sounds like it would give you a better quality of life, especially if your children are still relatively young and likely to be at home another 10-15 years. I think your current home sounds like it would be unbalanced if you do the loft and no downstairs extension so given the costs and all the hassle of building work and refurbishment you suggest needs doing downstairs as well and would still require you to borrow i wouldn't do that

We had exactly this dilemma 9 years ago. Three bed 1920s semi with a box room vs four bed detached with smaller garden. We moved and it was the right decision for us. Our teens are now big men who come back from uni and take up lots of space and also have girlfriends. They will also be at home full time for a few years after uni. We would be very cramped in our old house and we prefer the smaller garden as they don’t use it so much and it’s less work for us as we get older.

Well we've reached a stalemate - I want to do the loft conversion and DH wants to buy a bigger house.

I love our location and garden so much that I don't want to leave it. Instead I want to make this house work as well as it can and I think we'd be happy here. We've had visits and quotes from several architects and loft conversion companies, and the one we like the best can fit us in next Feb/March before a big job they have in the summer.

Meanwhile DH wants to keep our house on the market in the hope that a house will come up for sale that will have everything we need. He's accepted this may be in the new year, or may not happen at all. In the meantime we'd be living in limbo, and I'm not sure what we're meant to be doing about the people who want to buy our house and are waiting for an answer.

We have two autistic children who thrive on routine and familiarity, and I don't want to uproot them. DH thinks they'd adapt to a new house but I'm not so sure, and I don't want to take the risk (plus I like where we are, we just need more space!).