Are extensions cost effective.

[Psycho Sonny]

Having a proper stairway is what eats up space and a lot of money. Ladder anywhere will easily knock £20K off a loft conversion.

I think they did the numbers and Garage conversion is the cheapest form of extending a home. Then it's a loft conversion then it's an extension.

However you should be looking to double your money on an extension and you can do this by buying the materials yourself as well as doing as much of the work yourself as you can and then getting family and friends to help with others.

 

[a1ex2001]

Having a proper stairway is what eats up space and a lot of money. Ladder anywhere will easily knock £20K off a loft conversion.

I think they did the numbers and Garage conversion is the cheapest form of extending a home. Then it's a loft conversion then it's an extension.

However you should be looking to double your money on an extension and you can do this by buying the materials yourself as well as doing as much of the work yourself as you can and then getting family and friends to help with others.

a ladder might not 20K off your loft conversion costs but it will also knock the same of the value increase on the property as your new rooms won't be legal living space!

We spent a lot of money reconverting our loft two years ago we split the room into two bedrooms and a bathroom with the addition of a new dormer and also a complete re roof, even 'up north' this was 25K's worth and we didn't touch the existing staircase!

This spring we will be adding a side return on the kitchen and opening up downstairs installing a new kitchen and bathroom at the same time so looking at another 30K's worth of work. We will not have added anything like this in value to our house but to move to a significantly nicer house in the area we live would cost us 100-150K so upgrading is a better option.

 

[Solus]

I think if you're doing a house up to sell think seriously about your return on an extension. If you're living in it for a good few years yet, why think so hard? As long as you're getting the use out of it and it's what you want then do it. Obviously it shouldn't be so extravagant that you'll possibly lose 40k once you sell, but usually you're talking 20-30k for a bit of extra living space minus any kitchen, walls being knocked down.

People quite happily buy cars and have them depreciate in value every year, if you get the use out of it generally it doesn't matter.

 

[daz]

I think for most people, work like this is about getting more enjoyment from their current house. It's not always easy to move, and with stamp duty at the level that it is then adding to the existing property seems to be the way forward.

It does seem to be happening more and more around here, especially in the £800k-£1.2m bracket where the property market is not liquid and the cost of moving so high, it makes sense to make your current house work better and more to your liking than moving.

 

[jl10000]

Structural engineer and most importantly a decent chippy is all you really need for a loft conversion. Perhaps an architect to help with drawings/planning. Bring in the other trades yourself when they are needed.

A large amount of that £55,000 is paying middle men.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Structural engineer and most importantly a decent chippy is all you really need for a loft conversion. Perhaps an architect to help with drawings/planning. Bring in the other trades yourself when they are needed.

A large amount of that £55,000 is paying middle men.

chippy? what does fish and chips got to do with building an extension apart from lunch?

 

[kaktus]

Typical high grade core and shell loft / extension you're looking at about £50 per square foot. Anything more than that and you're being fleeced on excessive profit margins or unnecessary labour or time scale.

If you want to save yourself the headache of going through line item by line item just take the quote you like and discount it by 15% and offer that to the builder. You dont want to take too much from him or he won't be incentivised to do a proper job but I'm guessing you also dont want to trawl through every line item trying to value engineer the price.

Generally speaking, you should be pricing to £50 psf for core and shell high grade. In London most of the builders are now slapping on a price of £125 psf for no justifiable reason so if you're confident and you're willing to challenge you'll eat into that absurd profit margin and get a somewhat more reasonable price. Again, just becareful to balance between negotiating and insulting.

Also bear in the mind that construction and property are slowing down quite a bit so you're in a relatively stronger bargaining position at the moment.

In terms of whether this all makes sense or not just price it up by taking into account construction cost versus estimated value versus cost of buying a similar house in your area versus headache/time spent getting it done. You should have a fair idea of whether to proceed or not.

If you want to have a chat PM me and we can speak by phone

 

[danlightbulb]

Seems rather silly to me that a figure per square meter can be so rigidly applied. As an extension is mostly empty space, I fail to see how this unit rate can be correct as an extension varies in size and shape. Sounds like a get out to me, to avoid them doing proper costings.

 

[daz]

In London most of the builders are now slapping on a price of £125 psf for no justifiable reason

I'd imagine it's supply and demand - I expect most builders can pretty much pick and choose what they want to work on at the moment.

 

[kefkef]

My extension (can see pictures in some of the other threads) was approx. £50k for 27sqm2, so £1.8k per m2. That doesn't include my time though, and as I did the project management, site clearance, knocked walls out, laboured for the builder when I could, painted the extension, fitted the wood/tile floor and kitchen, if you add that in it's probably closer to £2.3-2.5k per sqm2.

The original guideline from the architect was to budget between £1.5-£2.5k depending on quality of finish and internals required.

 

[platypus]

Moving just seems to provide better value, and less stress. Even when you consider the stamp duty and other moving costs.

Where in Cambridge could you move that would be cheaper than extending though?

 

[platypus]

So we visited friends at the weekend in Hitchin. Mainline to London 30 minutes, so even more commuterville than Cambridge.

Four years ago, they had a two storey extension done (pretty much exactly as we want), and were originally quoted £32,000. They ended up paying £43,000, after buying all the materials themselves, and this was for a substantial extension. How have prices more than double in that time? We're being told a minimum of £100K and thats not even for second fit.

 

[Syla5]

So we visited friends at the weekend in Hitchin. Mainline to London 30 minutes, so even more commuterville than Cambridge.

Four years ago, they had a two storey extension done (pretty much exactly as we want), and were originally quoted £32,000. They ended up paying £43,000, after buying all the materials themselves, and this was for a substantial extension. How have prices more than double in that time? We're being told a minimum of £100K and thats not even for second fit.

Get the builder that did theirs to do a quote for you.

 

[platypus]

Yeah we're going too, though I doubt they'll travel this far.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Versus stamp duty and all other expenses, sure.

 

[Adam]

I've just given the go ahead for a loft conversion to start in April, we agreed £39k all in which will provide me with 2x rooms (14x16ft and 9x16ft) plus a bathroom. That will include 2x dormers at the back and 3x sky lights at the front.

I have no plans to move so we felt it was worth doing while the kids are young so we get our money's worth. As for a return I expect it to add 20% to my property and it's something about 25% of my cul de sac have also done. In fact the builder I'm using has done them all.

 

[Solus]

We are in the middle of a rear single storey 4.7m x 4.5m.

24k is the cost and it's being done by a friend of a friend. On top of this is the building regs, planning, architect and anything that may crop up. Actual cost more like 27k.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

You should move to scotland. It seems like it's more cost effective to just to move to a larger home. I may convert the garage as it's simple and cheap to do but an extension or a proper loft conversion just isn't worth it IMO if you want to do it properly. A loft conversion on the cheap could also be worthwhile but again doing it properly your better off just buying a bigger home.

With a bigger home you get a larger driveway, larger garage, larger garden, larger rooms, etc.

e.g. small 3 bed semi detached - £150K, large 3 bed detached with garage - £200K, large 4 bed detached with double garage £250K.

This is in a half decent area too. Trendier areas well if you can afford those houses then you can afford the upgrades when need be.

Stamp Duty isn't that much it's a % over a certain amount. I would rather pay a small % to have a bigger home with bigger garden than to just add a couple of rooms on and eat into outside space.

 

[R.O.S.S.I]

a ladder might not 20K off your loft conversion costs but it will also knock the same of the value increase on the property as your new rooms won't be legal living space!

That's not really true. It will be perfectly legal to live in the space however you can't "officially" class it as a bedroom/study/whatever. I.e. if you had a 3 bedroom house normally plus the loft room which was currently being used as a bedroom you couldnt market it as a 4 bedroom house. Its just a 3 bedroom plus loft area.

 

[R.O.S.S.I]

We are in the middle of a rear single storey 4.7m x 4.5m.

24k is the cost and it's being done by a friend of a friend. On top of this is the building regs, planning, architect and anything that may crop up. Actual cost more like 27k.

Is that just for a straight up whole 4.7x4.5 room or will it be split into further rooms?