no buyers so might look to put up a extension

harmy

right we are struggling to sell our home so looking at takening house off the market and building an extension.

where would i get the money from?

could i get a loan from the bank and when extension is finished re mortgage the house?

i reckon it would cost about 25k to build on top of my garage.

anyone done this before?

kingstreet

If you have enough equity you could remortgage now and not have to mess around with the loan.

I would say avoid contractors asking for money up front. I've heard of several cases where contractors were paid upfront, only to go into liquidation, then "phoenix" into another firm a few days later.

harmy

my house is up for 120k and i have 100k left on my mortgage.

would i be able to remortgage with this?

poppysarah

Probably not.

Unless your garage has proper footings that can stand another floor on top, it'd have to be ripped down.

What's your loft like?

kingstreet

harmy - have you asked anyone, local agent or surveyor what the property will be worth after you do this and got estimates for what it will cost to do?

I'm worried you get a loan, do the work, then find out the value is not as much as you thought and you end up having to remortgage at a lousy rate to get you out of the short-term loan you use as a stop-gap.

Be careful.

You don't have enough equity to remortgage now, hence my concern.

harmy

ok this is great advice.

this is only a thought at the minute so cheers for the info.

got a lot of things to think about so cheers.

Doozergirl

poppysarah wrote: »

Unless your garage has proper footings that can stand another floor on top, it'd have to be ripped down.

That is not strictly true. If it's in good nick then it would be worth underpinning. And no, it doesn't carry the stigma of subsidence based underpinning with it.

hazyjo

Bigger houses don't automatically sell quicker than smaller ones - maybe you could improve your current house, or drop the price a bit.

Seems a bit drastic to add an extension. It won't necessarily add value anyway. If you're thinking of building on top of the garage, would you just be looking to add one bedroom? How big is downstairs? Adding another bedroom on a small house with one living space and a kitchen ain't gonna make much difference IMO.

Is it possible for you to show us your house in its current state so we can give opinions on how the listing might be improved? Is it on RM?

Ta,

Jx

Doozergirl

I'd convert the garage and build over to balance up downstairs and up. I'd be very surprised if it didn't add value.

Catatonia

I think it is likely to add value, but maybe not more than actually doing it, especially if the reason that the house is not selling is because it's overpriced.

This sounds like a big risk and a very bad idea to me. Unless you were experienced at doing up/ extending properties, or were in the trade yourself so could do a good job for a low cost I think you'd be much better off doing small jobs to make the house more saleable (eg sprucing up the decor, fixing small things) and looking at adjusting the asking price.

Doozergirl

Am I the only person who thinks they'd be doing it to make it big enough to actually live in for the longer term then?

Extending is almost certainly going to be cheaper than buying and moving into a new, similar sized house.