The house is getting too small but you love the area, what are your choices?
It’s a common problem facing growing families: what to do when they outgrow the home?
If you choose to move, you will be faced with all those associated costs such as stamp duty, solicitor’s fees and moving expenses, not to mention possible renovations on your new home.
If you’re not ready or willing to move, you will then weigh up whether a viable option would be to renovate your existing home or knock it down and build from scratch.
To help you figure out which option would be best for you, we look at what to weigh up when deciding whether to knock down and rebuild or renovate your home to suit your current needs.
WHICH DO YOU THINK IS THE MOST COMMON DECISION: BUILDING NEW OR RENOVATING?
We don’t believe that either option is more popular, it all depends on your budget, time you can dedicate, and the resources you have at hand.
WHEN DECIDING WHETHER TO RENOVATE OR KNOCK DOWN AND REBUILD, WHAT SHOULD PEOPLE ASK THEMSELVES?
You could renovate the home by extending and adding bedrooms, living spaces and changing kitchen and bathrooms to meet current trends. This can get costly.
At times renovating seems the best bet rather than building an entire home from scratch, but is it? This is something that many people are asking today.
So why not just knock the whole place down and build a completely new property on the existing site? You already have a great block of land, why not utilise it? Re-building on your existing property could be beneficial in the long run, financially and logistically – short term pain, for long term gain.
THE MOST IMPORTANT FIRST STEP IN DECIDING WHETHER IT’S RE-BUILD OR RENOVATE IS TO DO YOUR SUMS:
• Consider the sale price of your home as is and relocating to a home you aspire to in the area. With stamp duty and legals included – what would it cost?
• With that budget, could you renovate to achieve your goals? Will a renovated home in your area fetch the resale price you hope for – is it a good investment?
• Traditionally knocking down and rebuilding will cost a little more – but a brand new home in an established area is gold. If you plan a long-term stay there is no better investment.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE KEY BENEFITS OF RENOVATING?
• You can pick and choose exactly how you want to revamp your home without knocking the whole thing down.
• You generally don’t have to leave the home whilst renovations are taking place.
• This can add a large investment value to your original home price.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF A KNOCK-DOWN REBUILD?
• Stay where you are in a beautiful new home, with all the modern trimmings.
• No compromises, choose a design to suit your needs.
• New everything! No maintenance hassles.
• Great resale value.
WHAT IS THE EASIEST IN TERMS OF FINANCE?
It all depends on the amount of equity present in your home and what are the extents of the renovations.
In regards to equity, if it is already there prior to any renovations taking place then you may be able to ‘cash out’ your equity. This then gives you cash to run your renovation project on your terms.
If the improvements are required for the property value to reflect the loan amount that is required then you are going to need a building contact and/or quotes from a builder.
Same goes for extensive renovations or rebuild, the banks will want to see a building contract and which is a lot more structured than cashing out some equity to ‘redo the bathroom’ or ‘put a pool in’ for example
WHERE DO YOU START?
There are 3 key things that you need to get started:
1. A good idea of exactly what you want to do to your property
2. An estimate of costs the project will amount to
3. Get your equity assessed as well as your Borrowing Capacity.. this is the easy part as we can do it all for you..
Get started by clicking here