You are reading a single comment by @CYOA and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
Arducius
Aroogah
@CYOA
Extension people...
2 bed semi in Brighton (not a particularly fancy bit but without 5 minutes walk to Kemptown, 10 minutes to seafront etc, quiet - lovely views blah).
Bought in 2015 for 237k. Spent 12k on a kitchen, plastered and redecorated everywhere (it needed it), new fixtures/fittings/electrics etc, same old bathroom but it's on the cards for the summer. 2-bed houses in the same street to a similar standard going for about 310k at the moment.
Looking at options now either to move on or to stay and extend. I doubt we'd be able to get what we want if we sold - we'd probably want to find at least 200k down the back of a sofa to realistically live somewhere nicer in Brighton which is where we want to be.
To stay and extend we'd get a home improvement loan and either build up or out with the aim being buying us time as family grows while we save up some more dollar and also acting as an investment to help us reach dollar faster.
We've got quite a large garden which makes me think building out is the way, but then we'd just have an extra living area rather than a new bedroom/bathroom and I wonder how much value that adds to a place?
The garden is also tiered steeply on a hill which is a bit of a pig for extending outwards as you'd realistically need to lower all the terraces to make it viable so you weren't just looking at a wall out the window once you extended.
To build up we'd get a mansard(?) conversion and add an en-suite with a large master bedroom.
To build out we'd extend the kitchen and open it up into a large and bright open plan kitchen/diner thing leaving the living room at the front of the house intact.
In either option we'd also build a decent office at the end of the garden on top of the hill with the view out to sea/big glass windows etc.
Would building up or building out be more profitable for us by the time we came to sell? To be clear I want to make as much from selling this place as the market will allow so practicality or our desires while living here for the next 2 years (3 max) aren't issues - just what's the most cost effective way of seeing the best return.
1 Attachment