We had a friend of ours over yesterday who is a very successful local realtor to give us a market appraisal of our house.
We've outgrown it at this point and need more space, so we are in a quandry. Do we do a renovation and put on an addition (which will cost a good $250,000) or look for a new place.
Generally, the answer would be a no brainer, but our house and property are unique, so we'd be sacrificing a lot of beauty and character for more space. Our friend who has seen properties worth millions was even impressed.
So, today we get an honest opinion based on facts and not emotion.
The market here has gone crazy, so even adding what we'd net out of the house to what we would spend on the renovation/addition, I'm not sure we'd get what we want.
Just and exxample: I saw a property yesterday that had the scariest driveway ever! No getting out of there in the winter and I have no clue how the oil truck gets down there either! The property was 11 acres, but all woods. There was maybe 3/4 quarter acre (including the space taken up by the house) clear. And that was $650,000 - way more than I ever want to spend on a house!
So, I'm a little nervous. I'd love to hear that it's worth twice what we paid for it and we should do the work! On the other hand, there's something to be said for moving into something already done and not having to live through a renovation.
Anxiously waiting for the the phone to ring ...

By Trina~moderator on Friday, August 26, 2005 - 08:39 am:

A tough decision.... I hope it all works out for you, whatever you decide. Real Estate is crazy in our area, too. We can't afford what our house would sell for today. LOL! People say, "Wow, you'd make a killing if you sold your house now." Well yes, we'd sell it for a lot more than we bought it for 7 yrs. ago, HOWEVER, we simply can't afford to buy a similar house in our area, forget about a bigger one! It's crazy!

By Eve on Friday, August 26, 2005 - 08:52 am:

Ame-it sounds like you want a huge renovation! My friend added on 2 bedrooms, a family room, a garage and redid the whole basement into an inlaw apartment and it was $100,000.

I would do all the research you can. The only thing I would be careful of is where you buy, if you decide to go that route. The talk is that real estate is going to slow down soon. I would think it would be the big brand new homes that would suffer the most. So, I wouldn't buy into a development, but an established area.

It sounds like you love where you are, so I'd probably stay. What are the other homes valued in your area in comparison to yours? I wouldn't want the most expensive house in the block. JMHO.

Good luck with whatever you decide. It's such a personal choice.

By Vicki on Friday, August 26, 2005 - 08:57 am:

our house and property are unique, so we'd be sacrificing a lot of beauty and character for more space


By this comment, do you mean by moving you would be sacrificing it or do you mean by remodeling your home it would sacrifice it? I think there is good and bad points about both. We recently felt we needed some things different in our home too. But, by doing the improvements, we would probably have more into our home than we could get out of it at the moment. So we started looking around at homes in our area. We looked for a few months, then decided to just go ahead and do the changes to our current home. We found that the price of houses that we wanted were just so high, it was silly. Then we would have to go in and change carpet and paint and do all of the normal stuff that needs changed to your taste. Landscaping some of them were issues too. So in the end, we decided to stay here and make the changes. We finished the basement off and made a game/movie room down there. In the end, it was cheaper to do that. Plus another huge factor... we like it here. We like the neighborhood and our home. We finally got all the rooms the way we like them! I really wasn't in the mood to start from scratch in another home. Those are all things to consider too!! Good luck!

By Yjja123 on Friday, August 26, 2005 - 09:35 am:

We were in a similar position around a year ago. The houses we looked at that were $300,000+ more than our current mortgage were just not as nice as ours and did not have the property we had. We made a list of pros/cons of moving versus remodeling. One of the biggest deciding factors was how much cheaper it would be to stay and make our house work. To move our taxes would have gone up $5,000+, not to mention how high our new mortgage payment would be. Financially it was better to stay. We refinanced our house and lowered our interest by 2%. We took out some money and put it into a roof, pool, appliances, etc. We are so happy with our house now. I sleep much better knowing that we are not in debt but have a "new" house.
Good luck with whatever you decide!

By Colette on Friday, August 26, 2005 - 12:04 pm:

If you decide to renovate hire a good architect to draw up the plans. Explain to them that you do not want it to "look" like and addition and you want to incorporate the character of your current house. We also were in a similar situation a few years ago and could not for the life of us figure out how to add on to our house without it looking like an addition, we have some odd roof lines - but the architect we hired did a beautiful job and we hired a good general contractor to do the job.

By Bea on Friday, August 26, 2005 - 12:20 pm:

Renovations are a pain, but I'd go with it. Moving is as stressful and it's a crap-shoot as to whether you'll be as happy in the new place. If you really love your home, than renovate.

By Amecmom on Saturday, August 27, 2005 - 03:32 pm:

Got the word today that what we can actually sell our house for is a little over two hundred thousand more than we paid for it! So ... if we put on our addition and ended up selling in a year or two, we'd still net out even - which is good. If we do an addition and keep the house for a while we'll get it all back, plus!
So ... now I guess i start calling architects!
I really love where I live, and would hate to move ...
Ame

By Reds9298 on Saturday, August 27, 2005 - 03:52 pm:

That's wonderful! Do you care if I ask how long you've lived there? That's a great return!

By Amecmom on Saturday, August 27, 2005 - 04:35 pm:

It was four years ago in April that we purchased the house. Everything in our area has skyrocketed because people want to move north, away from NYC.
It's a relief to know that we can't really go wrong if we do a reasonable extension/renovation.
Ame

By Reds9298 on Saturday, August 27, 2005 - 04:53 pm:

WOW! That's fantastic Ame!

By Yjja123 on Saturday, August 27, 2005 - 04:58 pm:

That is exactly what made us decide to stay. Our house appraised for $225,000 more than what we paid. Good luck with your renovation. I think you will be happy staying since you love where you live.