Buying a property with extensions

[geek84]

Hi Folks

We are thinking of buying a property and a few of my friends have advised that we shouldn't buy a property which has been extended - i.e. extended kitchen, bathroom, living room etc. The main reason they give is that the standard of the extension would not be of the same high standard as of the other rooms which were constructed when the property was first built.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks in advance

[57 Chevy]

Absolute nonsense.

I’m currently building an extension on my house and it has to be to current regs. The house was built in 1973 and was built to the regs then. For example the floor in the current house is chipboard, joists and the soil under that. In the extension it is chip board, membrane, pir between the joists (joists are thicker too) then a void, then concrete, then a membrane, then sand, then hardcore, then you get to the dirt.

Just make sure anything has been signed off by building control.

[GR_TVR]

My thoughts are your friends are full of st

[sunil4]

Your friends don't want you to have a better home than them ?

[BaldOldMan]

Arguably, the extension should be better.....

As above - as long as everything has building regs approval, it should be fine. Standards for building regs - and particularly things like insulation levels - are increasing over time.

My extension needed deeper foundations & is much better insulated than the original house was. It's wiring will also be bang up to date with current regs, plumbing will be brand new etc etc.

However, it may make future extensions more difficult to get approved - so I can kind of get that angle

[nav2014]

Your friends are idiots

[Robertj21a]

geek84 said:

Hi Folks

We are thinking of buying a property and a few of my friends have advised that we shouldn't buy a property which has been extended - i.e. extended kitchen, bathroom, living room etc. The main reason they give is that the standard of the extension would not be of the same high standard as of the other rooms which were constructed when the property was first built.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks in advance

I would expect that a current/recent extension is likely to be of a higher standard than many original houses. Obviously, it depends on the quality of the original house, and extensions since that time.

[PositronicRay]

Depends on when the extension was done, how, by whom and to what.

[number2]

Twiddle.

You could though, try to find a property that hasn't been extended, for less money, and add the extension (and likely value) in your own time.

[Flibble]

My extension has nice flat walls, unlike the rest of the house.

[sagarich]

Flibble said:

My extension has nice flat walls, unlike the rest of the house.

Likewise

[Little Lofty]

As long as they have have been signed off by building control then there shouldn't be any major problem. I’m working on an old house at the moment, I’d like to think a modern extension would be built far better than this thing, it’s got charm and character but it’s also got damp, woodworm, dry rot and wet rot, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen woodworm, dry rot and wet rot all in the same piece of timber

[jimPH]

Old extensions with flat roofs might be problematic.

[andye30m3]

To be fair some older extensions are pretty awful, lots of single skin brick or blockwork etc.

But as others have said a modern extension is likely to be better built than most developer built housing.

[Pit Pony]

Just in the process of buying a house that was built in the 1800s.
It's clearly a different house than it was 150 years ago, but I'm not expecting the full building survey, to pull up any problems with the kitchen extension built in 2014.

[crofty1984]

If you're that worried, I think you can get indemnity insurance, so if it causes you a problem in the future you're sorted. i.e. if it was built without final sign off, you won't be liable to tear it down and rebuild it.

[snowman99]

Given the cost of extending is generally less than the cost of moving to a larger house, when factoring in all moving costs, there is an argument that buying the largest 'unextended' house you can afford now is better, and then extending that as your family or budget grows is better.

Once a house has been extended once or twice, it starts to become difficult to extend further, either for planning reasons or you end up with a disjointed layout, rooms with no natural light etc.

But the hassle of extending is a pain so if someone has gone and done all the work for you, that could be good.

I wouldn't make any hard and fast rules.

[geek84]

Thanks folks

[dhutch]

I think it depends.

Victorian house with a crappy 1970's extension, quality of extension my be suspect. However a modern extension should be up to scratch an my be better.

However as said, the other side of the coin is that a lot of extended properties have been done to squeeze an extra bed in rather than move without much thought. So you get a '4bed house' that actually a 2.5 bed with a poorly thought out extension that doesn't suit the house. Smaller living room, plot, poorly layout, compared to the equiv 4bed elsewhere, but with a price that doesn't really reflect that.

Equally you get very well thought out sympathetic extensions that work really well.

So yeah, im expect thats no help at all, but food for thought non the less!


Daniel

[Pit Pony]

dhutch said:

I think it depends.

Victorian house with a crappy 1970's extension, quality of extension my be suspect. However a modern extension should be up to scratch an my be better.

However as said, the other side of the coin is that a lot of extended properties have been done to squeeze an extra bed in rather than move without much thought. So you get a '4bed house' that actually a 2.5 bed with a poorly thought out extension that doesn't suit the house. Smaller living room, plot, poorly layout, compared to the equiv 4bed elsewhere, but with a price that doesn't really reflect that.

Equally you get very well thought out sympathetic extensions that work really well.

So yeah, im expect thats no help at all, but food for thought non the less!


Daniel

We are buying a 2 bed house. I'm convinced that it would cost £300 max to turn it into 3 bed and £4k to turn it into 4 beds and another 1k to turn it into 5 bed without much effort and no planning permission or much building work.

Basically
There's a bedroom that's been converted to.a second bathroom. The master bedroom is massive and could fit that bathroom as an ensuite.
Then there's a sitting room on the first floor. You have to go through it to get to the 2nd floor. The other side of the stairs is a large bathroom. You could make it a smaller bathroom, and have a corridor to the other side of the wall from where the staircase starts. And the sitting room could be bed room 4.
Then there's the other big bedroom on the first floor. It has 2 big Windows and could be cut in half. Either 2 large single rooms or a small double room.and a smaller single room

At some point say 15 years in the future we will discuss it's value with 2,3 4 and 5 bed rooms and sell it on with the option most likely to sell at the biggest price.