Home improvements worth it?

pledgeX

I'm in a bit of a conundrum regarding our home. We live in a two bed semi. We like the house, but we don't think it's big enough for the family size we're looking to have, but it's more than adequate for now.

There's a number of things that we'd like to do to the house:

• Split the back bedroom in half, making it a 3 bed
• Turning the stairs at the top, thus altering the landing area
• Increasing the size of the bathroom to allow for separate bath and shower (only possible if we adjust the stairs as above)
• Replace visible supporting beams and hide them in ceiling space

The above options are not cheap, and at the end of the day, the house will still be too small for our needs in 5-10 years time and we'll need to move, even if it does make it a nice place to live for those few years.

What I'm trying to work out is whether doing the above work is likely to be financially rewarding in terms of getting more money for this house meaning we close the gap in price between our house and the new house.

I've thought of asking a few estate agents around to ask as you'd like to think they'd have a good idea, but I'm wary that they'd be telling me what I want to hear rather than a realistic view. Would an estate agent be my best bet here?

Out,_Vile_Jelly

None of that sounds like you would have significantly more space. Not sure I'd bother.

spadoosh

I think a valuer would be mroe appropriate. But then there views will be based purely on speculation. In all ikelihood they will just look at the price difference between a 2 bed and a 3 bed and lump it in with them.

My personal opinion is you only add value by adding space. You might be able to blag someone that what youre offering as a 3 bed is more than the 2 bed but the reality is its the exact same space.

Im in a similar position, not a forever house. Can make it more forever house but obviously need to spend money. My house is currently at the top end of the value ceiling. Any work i do (including extension etc) will only just add that amount to the value of the house, i cant see profit in it. So after doing all the work to make the house more suitable for us im still in a house that i will eventually want to move out of, wouldntve increased the value any more than the cost (maybe a very small profit) and ive now got a modified house in which ill need to look for people who want the modified house that ive designed to my taste.

I decided its not worth it. We'll manage until we decide to sell and then our house is open to those who want to buy it as a 3 bed 1 reception or those who would be willing to extend to a 4bed 2 receptions.

People should make houses more suitable for them. However if you know youll sell eventually think long and hard before committing to whats essentially an unnecessary expense.

saajan_12

pledgeX wrote: »

• Split the back bedroom in half, making it a 3 bed-
  how big is the current back room.. wasted space? how big would the split rooms be.. too small to be usable? In theory not expensive to just put 1 wall up, unless you need to move around additional walls, heating.. depends on the layout.
• Turning the stairs at the top, thus altering the landing area - current layout?
• Increasing the size of the bathroom to allow for separate bath and shower (only possible if we adjust the stairs as above)- why? if its currently too pokey to wrangle a couple of kids in the bath then size may add (a little) value.
  But as long as there's a bath with a shower over it, why add a separate shower in the same room?
• Replace visible supporting beams and hide them in ceiling space- how attractive are they? can be considered character and often down to personal preference so this wouldn't add value. If you don't like them I'm sure a decorator / simple false ceiling would be inexpensive.

For advice you need to give many more values.. Current value, area, value of similar 3beds, cost of works..

hazyjo

Always a tough one, but it depends on your road and what people can get for their money elsewhere. If you have a vague idea of what it would all cost, add that to the value of your house and have a look on RM for comparables. I doubt very much people would pay that much more for an extra bedroom if the footprint was the same - would they both be singles after being split?


And that's not to say that there won't be a property price slump. I once bought a house, put in a new smart kitchen, separate shower, flooring, decorating, new roof and gutters, etc, and lots of other improvements. Around 5-6 years later, I pretty much sold for what I bought for due to Recession. I did go on to buy cheaply in a nice area with my then-husband so we used it to our advantage, but it probably wouldn't be ideal for you, especially if you've had to borrow money to do it(?).


I'm really not sure an EA would be any more help. Just try to estimate the cost of the work and see if you're likely to get that back (although that does seem a bit pointless). If your whole street comprises the same type of house, forget it. I'm moving to a 3 bed house and it's one of the 'least nice' in the street. There are others going for double the price so I'm sure I could add value to this one.

Flutterbat17

I wouldn’t bother, just spend a bit on decorating and getting it looking it’s best to sell to get the best price for your house.

I’d rather find a property that’s already what we need and not have to live through all the renovations. Especially if you say you would still end up moving.

DaftyDuck

None of those alterations will be repaid on selling; you will, in effect, make a loss on each of them individually, or all of them together.

Obviously impossible to be sure, as house location and exact specifics of property may make a difference, but I'd be willing to bet a fair wager you'd lose money.

You might just squeeze a profit if it's a premium house, in a city centre or London. Might....

ReadingTim

None of those plans will make you money - you'll just end up with a place with pokey little rooms and a funny layout compared to the adjoining house (it's a semi right?) and the rest of the road. You'll sell at a loss, plus there's the cost of the work in the first place. Really, the only question is how much money do you want to lose overall?

A loft conversion or extension might add value because you're adding additional floor space - other than utilising some dead space, your current plans don't, so you won't make money.

Really the only way to close the gap is to save more as a deposit, earn more so you can borrow more on the mortgage, or compromise on some aspect of the new place, such as the location. Sorry if this isn't what you want to hear, but the days of the magic property money tree are probably receding somewhat...

AlexMac

Another vote for a "real" extension (loft or rear), which actually adds a few Msq of habitable floorspace.

You might be surprised what you can do under permitted development (google it). But as someone above says, it depends on prices locally. W

Where we live, an extension would add far more than three or even four times its cost to the eventual re-sale value (at least that's what I'm estimating based on a recent £20k conversion of a 15Msq garage to a room with an en-suite.

But it's always dicey predicating improvements on eventual profit; we did ours as a safeguard against when we might be too ga-ga to get up the stairs!

Cakeguts

Some houses are worth less when they have been extended because the extension produces long narrow rooms. Most people don't want a bedroom that looks like a corridor with the bed down one end and a lot of useless space. There will be a top price for the road. If you spend a lot of money on the house and it exceeds this value you won't get what you have spent on the house back.

pledgeX

Thanks for all the feedback folks.

We're not interested in a proper extension, as doing so would be a) expensive, b) take up too much of the garden, and c) the house would still be too small for a 'forever home'.

I'm slightly surprised that a lot of the comments allude to the fact that generally the only way to increase the property's worth is to increase the footprint. I'm sure a house with a dilapidated pink bathroom suite with cracked tiles, mouldy grout and dirty floor* would sell for less than the same house with a freshly renovated bathroom.

I'm not trying to convince myself the work would add value to the property. I would just like to have a better idea of how it would affect the price, if it won't, then it's perfectly fine.

* mine's not that bad, honest!