It’s been a strange few years for the housing market, although prices have been moving upwards throughout. It was a bit difficult to view houses or consider moving in the early days of Covid as viewing prospective properties and actually moving was very difficult. After that things started moving on the property market front and there was a lot of pent up demand. People also started doing work on their homes – being stuck at home all day had made any potential issues a lot more obvious. The dust is starting to settle now and if you haven’t already made a move to renovate, extend or move then it’s a good time to be assessing your options.
Renovate
Maybe your home is big enough and it’s in the right place already, but you are a bit dissatisfied with it. A new kitchen or bathroom will make it feel so much better and you’ll enjoy being there a lot more. Renovating a home, particularly where that work involves a kitchen or bathroom, can get very expensive so you might want to look at refinancing first. You can look at calculating your mortgage payments if you did remortgage and seeing what is affordable for you. Renovating your home will mean that you are able to choose what suits you and your budget and it’s easier to scale up or down your plans depending on your finances. Maybe by not extending or moving, you could pay off your mortgage more quickly. You’ll get to live in the home that you have designed, chosen and made your own. Plus you’ll be adding value and desirability to your home, if you should chose to sell in the future.
Extend
Is it better to move house or extend your home? It’s not a straightforward question to answer because there are so many variables. Generally you should be careful not to overextend your home. Look at other homes on the street. Have many done a similar extension already? Has it paid off when they came to sell? Generally it’s cheaper to extend than move as long, as you don’t create an giant, eyesore of a house on a road with lots of smaller, very stylistically similar houses. Are you able to create the features someone would expect from the type of house you are creating? For instance, certain types of property generally need to have parking (large detached family houses for example), although in central London this might be less of an issue.
Move
Sometimes a move is the only way to get the space and location of house that you want. Make sure you factor fees into whatever financial calculations you make and consider additional costs like stamp duty, removal costs and solicitors fees. Make sure your reasons for moving justify the financial costs and that you aren’t just moving because you are a bit bored. Be clear on what you want the move to achieve and your budget for making it all happen.
What’s your next housing move?
Make sure you consider all your options before you decide. You don’t want to renovate or extend and then realise you should have moved. If you are a spreadsheet or list kind of person, it makes sense to work out the pros and cons, maybe even weight them. Getting a rough idea of costings for all options is another great way of focusing your mind. Good luck with whatever you decide your next house move should be!
