Home improvements to increase remortgage value

lrnstcy1988

I purchased my flat in 2019. It's shared ownership and I own 75%.

Since then, I have renewed my mortgage twice. Since the most recent renewal, I have remodelled and updated my 2 x bathrooms. My mortgage deal is up at end of January and I am obviously facing high interest rate than I currently have.

And I have a kitchen that is in desperate need of updating and remodelling as well.

My dilemma is:

 - Do I update the kitchen pre January, and then have the flat revalued with the updated kitchen and 2 x bathrooms for my mortgage renewal, in the hope to improve my LTV and maybe impact my offers from the bank?

 - Or, do I just sit tight, renew my mortgage in January, and then go through with the kitchen? I.E. not rush so do it on my own timeline...

Note - I'd pay for the kitchen updates with inheritance so wouldn't take additional loans or funds out to cover the cost, so wouldn't need to take £££ from my mortgage to cover it, or wouldn't be increasing my debt with loans / interest free credit elsewhere. All the website articles I search for cover this situ - not mine as far as I can see!

Thanks in advance!

Strummer22

Check recent sold prices for similar properties near you, if there are any. Prices are falling in quite a few areas, so despite your improvements it's possible that asking a lender to revalue your property will backfire. 

nyermen

Also take a peek at your lenders (and maybe others...) minimum thresholds.  No point trying to get your LTV down if you're already at the best they offer.  Obvious maybe (apologies if so), but I hadn't realised that many don't change below 60% or so.  

With stress tests and banking regulatory capital allocations increasing significantly on LTV's above 75%, I'd have thought there would be more <50% LTV offers.

Flugelhorn

not sure that doing the work on property will increase the valuation as much as you hope - maybe better to use some of the inheritance to reduce the mortgage?

ACG

You can only increase up to a certain value as there will always be a ceiling. So you should look at what your balance is now compared to the value now and if you did the work. 

However, what I think it would also be useful to do is see what difference that would make in rates and then in turn repayments. As there is not a huge difference between the best buys at say 70% LTV and at 80% LTV so you might not even notice a difference in repayments.