Home improvements translating into value?

Exodi

Could you provide some context? It's not clear if you're buying this house as your main residence or as some form of property flip.

If it's to flip, I'd be careful about making subjective changes. I think your post actually provides a perfect example of the issue:

unfocus

Bathroom(s) - it's fairly fresh looking though not my taste. If we get around to it, is it worth installing a bath (space would be tight) rather than just shower for value?

This is exactly the predicament, you have a new bathroom but it's not to your taste hence you might not necessarily place value on it. You subjectively might consider the inclusion of a bath as preferrable over a more spacious bathroom, many would place no value in a bath (or negatively affect it, as they may not use a bath and the bathroom is now cramped).

If you plan to live in the house, then do what is right for you. If the intention is to sell the house, I would avoid making too many subjective decisions.

I will say there have been a few properties on the market that have gone up after having been renovated to an exceptionally high standard… and I've watched them make significant price reductions over the past few months. Looking at the previous purchase price, it's almost certain the renovators are now looking at a loss. I think unless you plan to do the work yourself or are in the building trade and have access to very cheap tradesman, it is extremely difficult to make money on renovations.

Plus there's no guarantee that they will add value. My mother for example looks at most modern interiors and dismisses them as 'soulless' or 'lacking character', a new modern kitchen would have very little impact on her offer.

Woodstok2000

Most important of all, know your market, and as above, there's a ceiling for properties. As an extreme example, my uncle has a £500k bungalow in a residential area with mostly retired neighbours. The next door neighbour passed away, son spent a huge amount of money on an extension, loft conversion, decking with a hot tub, all mod cons. He's done a beautiful job and its a stunning house but no-one looking to buy in that area cares about what he has spent the money on. It has been on the market for 18 months, 4 price reductions and he's going to make a loss on his investment.

I've seen this a lot in my area too.

I agree that there's ceilings for properties. I have observed two properties listed for about £100k more than similar properties, by virtue of having brand new kitchens, bathrooms, fancy flooring, resin driveways, the fancy lights that hang low from the ceiling, etc. Admittedly the interiors are gorgeous, but the house is still the same. Someone with the extra money could well decide that they'd rather forfeit the fancy interior for a bigger house with more bedrooms/bathrooms/bigger garden/in better location/etc. Predictably they've been dropping £25k every few months.

MobileSaver

To be honest, I don't think any of those 'improvements' (except the downstairs WC) would necessarily add any value to the existing valuation and in fact some may even devalue the property for some people.

For example, not everyone likes the idea of an open plan kitchen/living room so for some that makes the property less desirable. In my current home I spent £40,000 on a brand new kitchen but I know it's made no difference to the value of the house as there was nothing wrong with the old kitchen, it was just dated.

Similarly some people hate the thought of gardening so increasing the amount of garden and reducing the amount of parking would make the property be worth less to them.

Generally, adding real functionality such as an extra bedroom or bathroom are the few things that will make a difference - many people would pay more for the convenience of the downstairs WC you mentioned.

unfocus

• https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82129581#Comment_82129581

home report value is £300k

unfocus

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82129586#Comment_82129586

Thanks for your reply but my post was specifically asking about adding value. I'm already aware it's my house and I can do what I want. I don't need advice on what I want.

unfocus

Thanks for your reply but my post was specifically asking about adding value. I'm already aware it's my house and I can do what I want. I don't need advice on what I want.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82129589#Comment_82129589

unfocus

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82129616#Comment_82129616

Thanks for your reply but my post was specifically asking about adding value. I'm already aware it's my house and I can do what I want. I don't need advice on what I want.

unfocus

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82129622#Comment_82129622

There isn't any planning permission/warrants associated with the parking space. The just fenced off a huge bit of garden and covered it in chuckies.

sherlock228

rendering - will not add value, that is simply expected maintenance to a property. But if left to get worse will reduce the value of the property as the maintenance cost will then be a reduction to the sale price

garden - is there pressure on parking in the area? If there is plenty of on street parking then loss of own off road parking may not be too much of an issue, but it also depends on how much remaining garden there is and what can be done with it. A family house will want a garden the kids can be safely left to run riot in without smashing the cars. A residual small patch of grass may not be good enough for that. A family house with a "posh" garden may not appeal to those with riotous kids. Value neutral (or unlikely to recover works costs)

open plan living - current fashion, may not be in the future. Certainly trendy to have the kids visible from the kitchen when preparing meals and also when entertaining adults.
How well insulated is the property given this is Glasgow and heating costs are increasing. Unlikely to add value but might make your house compare better to its competitors.

new kitchen - almost certain you will not even recover the cost of the upgrade. Forget about adding value. Kitchens are notorious for being personal taste issues for buyers. You might have the most high end one in existence but the next person may dislike the shape of the handles and decide the whole thing needs to be replaced and the offer lowered to reflect that .

bathroom - you have already admitted it is a matter of personal taste. That said a 3 bed marketed to a family will be less appealing without a bath as many parents are still traditional enough to give kids bath times, not shower times.

attic - unless you get building control sign off for a compliant loft conversion it will always be an attic with boarding for storage. It will never be legally classed as bedroom, especially if it lacks a permanent staircase to access it along with relevant fire regulation precautions. Loss of floorspace to create the staircase often counter productive to adding value, you lose a bedroom to gain a larger bedroom but with sloping walls and the house loses storage space..

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82129614#Comment_82129614

Its likely to add value but certainly not guaranteed to add more value than it costs to do. In most places you will probably get the best result with a simple conversion with velux windows. Domers may be nicer to live with but they typically dont add that much more to the value but doing the work is notably more expensive.

Without local market knowledge its very hard to say whats going to add value and what wont wash its face. Certainly most of the things mentions are likely to have a negative RoI unless you have a route to much below market rates for work to be done. Most underestimate the cost of work hence generally better to leave the buyer to make changes if you are paying market rate.

unfocus

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82129629#Comment_82129629

I'm buying as my main residence but not necessarily my 'forever home.' It's more suburban than we're used to and are trying it out to see how it fits. It would just be nice to know if we were able to add value through improvements. I'm just thinking of examples we've viewed and what they went for. A house in another, less desirable, town near Glasgow we offered on went for over 25% over the home report value and, as far as we can tell, it's because of the very high spec renovation throughout (which is also what got us to offer more than we had previously said we would).