Move or improve

mollie78

Just wondered what others would do in this situation. We currently have £30k left on the mortgage, 'compact' 4 bed detached, nice safe area, me and husband in our early 40s, 2 pre-teen girls. We're at the stage or either upsizing or renovating our current house, which needs a general facelift eg windows, facias, general decorating. Main bugbear here is lack of second bathroom (needed more and more now the girls are getting older), which we could gain by adding an en-suite at the expense of the inbuilt wardrobes in bedroom 1 and 3. Or we could move to a large 4 bed detached with en suite plus possibly other benefits (large kitchen / diner / family room, but also could extend the kitchen diner here into a large family area at the expense of garden size). Upsizing would involve adding around £100k to the mortgage. WWYD?

quantumlobster

Entirely hinges on how much you like your current house.

If your house is on a nice leafy road with nice neighbours and all you're looking to do is improve and renew (i.e. you're not fixing anything fundamentally wrong with the house), then spending half of your upsizing budget on that could get you everything you want with bells on, even if that means extending. But that means living in a building site for a bit, and not everyone has the same tolerance for that.

But if you're actually looking for a reason to move, then you've found it. Which, of course, brings its own stresses and aggravations. Will the new neighbours be complete oursoles? Will the new house have been badly modified by a cowboy builder who was good at hiding it? Does it have covenant that lets the local lord of the manor dig for truffles in your front lawn? Is it built on an ancient indian burial ground? You've got children - schools! their friends! etc. etc.

In your position, if I liked the house, I'd change what I've got.

ReadingTim

Every house and every location has a price ceiling, above which it's difficult to go when you come to sell, and may actually cause problems finding buyers.

With regard to extensions etc, the footprint of the house is the limiting factor: houses with more bedrooms often have larger other rooms, whereas extensions etc can sometimes create a rabbit warren of small rooms, which may cause problems when trying to sell.

I don't know how close you are to the ceiling price of the neighbourhood, but it does sound like you're constrained by the footprint of the house, so rather than reducing room size to try and eek out another bathroom upstairs or risk a disproportionate ground floor extension and tiny garden, it might be better to move to something larger overall, rather than trying to make the best of the current 'compact' place.

Wobblydeb

We moved ...... although our cost to expand was about £100k and cost to move to a bigger house was £136k (inc all fees).

Is there anything you cannot get with your current house, that moving gives you the opportunity to add? A south facing garden perhaps? Or extra offroad parking (might be needed as the girls get older?).

Cakeguts

mollie78 wrote: »

Just wondered what others would do in this situation. We currently have £30k left on the mortgage, 'compact' 4 bed detached, nice safe area, me and husband in our early 40s, 2 pre-teen girls. We're at the stage or either upsizing or renovating our current house, which needs a general facelift eg windows, facias, general decorating. Main bugbear here is lack of second bathroom (needed more and more now the girls are getting older), which we could gain by adding an en-suite at the expense of the inbuilt wardrobes in bedroom 1 and 3. Or we could move to a large 4 bed detached with en suite plus possibly other benefits (large kitchen / diner / family room, but also could extend the kitchen diner here into a large family area at the expense of garden size). Upsizing would involve adding around £100k to the mortgage. WWYD?

I think you will find that there are plenty of families where there is only one bathroom. Sometimes it is good to train children to share. They may not always live in housing where they can spend hours in the bathroom without really annoying other people who are waiting to use it. Is there anywhere you can put in a downstairs toilet?

Cheeky_Monkey

mollie78 wrote: »

Just wondered what others would do in this situation. We currently have £30k left on the mortgage, 'compact' 4 bed detached, nice safe area, me and husband in our early 40s, 2 pre-teen girls. We're at the stage or either upsizing or renovating our current house, which needs a general facelift eg windows, facias, general decorating. Main bugbear here is lack of second bathroom (needed more and more now the girls are getting older), which we could gain by adding an en-suite at the expense of the inbuilt wardrobes in bedroom 1 and 3. Or we could move to a large 4 bed detached with en suite plus possibly other benefits (large kitchen / diner / family room, but also could extend the kitchen diner here into a large family area at the expense of garden size). Upsizing would involve adding around £100k to the mortgage. WWYD?

In view of that, I would stay and extend. You can't under-estimate the value of living in a nice, safe area. As they say, you can improve a house but you can't improve the area :beer:

Rambosmum

Move. You say compact. How compact? Is the new area just as safe? Got the same amenities, involves same schools and opportunities, commute to work etc. If yes, then I'd move (and did).

pinkshoes

Is an extension a possibility?

moneyistooshorttomention

What are the workmen like in your area? Is it an area where they are reliable and there's a reasonable chance they are a good standard - or no?

That would be my very first question to myself in your position.

If I were in an area where they think nothing of not turning up when they say they will/don't even contact you about it - I'd think twice about taking on renovation of a house ever again.

In an area where they do turn up when they say they will/that bit more likely to have reasonable standard (as they know customers are used to being choosy in their standards in quite a few things) you've a much better chance of being able to renovate without quite so much of a headache.