Do I get a loan?

chlozzi

Hi all,

We'd be really interested in your feedback. We bought a house one year ago that needed a lot of work. It's in an expensive area. We've been very sensible and have used the £400 we can save each month to do the house up gradually. We've nearly finished and have managed to add £35,000 of value to the house having spent £15,000 on doing it up in just one year - we had £10,000 in savings when we moved in.

We'd really like to do up the garden now - it is a steep slope and is completely unusable and unsafe for our toddler. We reckon to do it amazingly it would cost £15,000. Do we get a loan out and use our £400 per month to pay it off, then re-mortgage in a year's time at the end of our tie in period? If we added no extra value, we'd still have a 20% deposit - we had a 15% deposit when we bought. Or should we just accept that we can't afford it and just live with having a garden that we can't use.

We really want to be sensible as we have been stupid with money in the past and lived beyond our means. For the past few years we've been really good - have paid all our debts off with just one student loan to go, which will be paid off within a year.

Sorry for the long and rambling message.

chesky369

Why do you have to do it AMAZINGLY? The whole point about gardening is that it takes a long time to get a garden how you want it, not a heap of money thrown at it. A slope is a problem, but if you want your child to use it as a play area, simply start at the bit nearest the house and do that, then move on bit by bit. It's not like doing up a house - you need to think and plan as you go, otherwise it's not a proper garden, it's just interior decorating taken outside.

Wutang_2

Who has told you that you've added £35k to the property price??

And why change a well planned routine for a £15k garden? Stick with the £400 a month plan and calm down.

Let me just say that back to myself....a £15k garden....wow

KingElvis

Another sensible, well thought out scheme here.

15k for a slope, what you planning, a launch pad for Saturn V rockets?

bigadaj

The only real way of removing the slope would be to install a retaining wall, which is where the fifteen grand might come from, if it's for gnomes and plants it looks a bit excessive. Objectively this would add less value to the house than the cost of construction so isn't sensible, but if you really want to do it it's no worse than what other people waste their money on.

stephane_2

15K :eek: are you competing for the Chelsea flower show!!

primaryteacher

We moved into our new house at the beginning of the year. It has a large garden, which while well-stocked has been neglected. It's also on a steep slope. The top part needed huge amounts of cutting back and slaughtering! The bottom half was/is a vegetable garden - no longer with any veg in it and a bit of a mess at the moment.
We were no gardeners before - but have now been bitten by the bug and we are enjoying doing the work ourselves bit by bit - it's satisfying, stress busting, you get to see results and be out in the open air (although over-enthusiasm has given me tennis elbow currently!). We have talked about having a retaining wall built where a path is currently slipping down the slope and gravelling or turfing and making a wild flower meadow at the bottom where we can hang hammocks from the fruit trees etc. Big plans and we know we could so easily throw a fortune at it, but we have decided to do it bit by bit and mostly by ourselves. Turf is pretty cheap and a garden neither deteriorates if left a while or appreciates in value as a house does. I don't think you'll ever get your money back on a garden. See it as an evolving project - it doesn't have to be perfect! Good Luck!

tlh858

First - forget all about the 'increased' value of £35000. It only exists if someone is actually prepared to pay that much extra for the property, and that is only of any use if you are selling up and moving out, which clearly you are not doing.

Second - even the most ruined garden can be fixed up for far less than £15000.

Best option - continue being sensible and use the £400 per month to make improvements to the garden gradually.
If you can do up a house yourself, you can do the garden as well.

27col

I seriously doubt whether you would get a fraction of the £15000 back when you sold the house. Although, a nicely done garden, would probably make it easier to sell.

System

tlh858 wrote: »

First - forget all about the 'increased' value of £35000. It only exists if someone is actually prepared to pay that much extra for the property, and that is only of any use if you are selling up and moving out, which clearly you are not doing.

Not exactly true, as the OP is remortgaging soon and a higher house valuation can lead to a lower LTV and therefore a better mortgage deal.
Whether the house will be valued at 35k more is another question entirely!

DCFC79

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