Browse Forums Renovation + Home Improvement 1 Feb 23, 2016 7:15 pm G'day guys, I have a 1960s style 3 bedroom 1 bath fibro cottage (90m2 app) on a sloping block on the Central Coast, NSW. It's in a great spot so we'd prefer not to sell but we are starting a family and would like some extra space. We also would be thinking of selling in 5-7 years so would want the house to be in a position to sell. We got it a few years ago for just under 400k, have done some minor interior renos and it's valued now at about 550k, but I'd rather not sell. We have thought of a few options: 1. KDRB 2. Addition out the rear (split level house - double story addition) 3. Addition out the front (single level house) 4. Raise and build under 5. Pop up addition Our block is just under 500sq, sloping down from the road and south facing with okay views. I've attached some dimensions of the existing house and how it sits on the block. The block is wider at the front than the rear. upload gif imgurl Going through our options: 1. I talked with a few home builders who didn't like our site slope. There is also the added cost (about 20k for the demo) and seems site costs are high. We then went to Montgomery Homes as the 'sloping specialists' in our area. We found out to build the Carolina 239 (4/2/2) from Montgomery would be about 400k all up (inc site costs etc). It's a split level nice house. With that house on our block it would sell for about 800k (real estates estimates and prev sold prices of Montgomery homes locally). Considering I bought the place for about 400k originally I'm basically dead flat even. Can you build any 4/2/2 homes for under 250k on a sloping block (so I keep my 150k equity)? 2. This is the two story split level idea we had first. It halves our backyard, we got the idea from the Montgomery homes alpine style. The thing missing is a garage. The garage issue is we have 3 meters from the back corner of the house to the right fence and about 5 meters from the front corner, so a double won't fit now as is. image hosting site 3. I have some drawings but haven't done them online. We can extend out the front by 2 meters on our M/B, 4 meters on middle front bed and 6 meters on the lounge/front door entry. (That gives us 6 meters from the setback). We've got a few designs but none really grab us. They all have a long hallway up the centre to enter which feels like dead space in such a small house. Anyway it only gives us about a 130m2 house which is still pretty tiny. We could add a long single width garage down the side. 4. Had a number of quotes/ideas with this. There seems to be only 3 house raisers in my area and all of their rough quotes vary from about 30-100. They won't quote without engineer drawings. I'm not sure of this idea as the costs might blow out, but I'm handy so I do like the idea of raising now, getting it water tight underneath and building in at my leisure. It also gives us the space for a 2 car garage under. Maybe look like this: image uploading 5. We got a pop up second story builder, local very well respected, to quote and from memory it was about 150k to just get a bedroom and a bathroom and small rumpus (we lose a downstairs room for the stairs). Ideally we'd love a 4 bed 2 bath 2 car with a covered deck at the rear. That's the ideal, I'm hoping for some ideas/rough costs to get steered into a realistic and worthwhile direction. Sorry if that's a bit much but I've read a lot of forum posts and can see you guys have some serious knowledge/great ideas. Thanks in advance. Re: Ideas needed. 2Feb 23, 2016 10:58 pm IMO, if you want to keep your equity then it may be best to do as little as possible, make do, and sell when you are ready and move into something more suitable. If you got a decent selling price, $150 000 is a lot of equity. Depending on the location, and I'm assuming it is probably a well situated older suburb? most of your current value is in the land, and very little in the house. so by building a new house, you are sinking a lot of money into something that won't bring in extra equity in the near future. I also wouldn't sink a lot of money into an old fibro house extension if you plan on selling in 5 or so years because a lot of people just won't find it appealing, especially with increasing paranoia about asbestos and the increasing costs of removal/disposal. I live in an older suburb of perth which had it's fair share of fibro houses 10-15 years ago, most of them are gone now, and the blocks are redeveloped because no one wants them or tries to salvage them. If you plan on staying there long term because you like the area, then I would do what you can afford/want and worry about the equity if the time ever comes to sell, given enough time the value will increase again but right now, your block location is likely where the real value is at this point, and in 5 years someone may want to pay a good price to do their own kdr of their choice because of the location. Re: Ideas needed. 3Feb 24, 2016 6:34 am This is the conundrum that led to us selling up then buying land and building..used the profit from our sale as part of our deposit (20% on both land & construction) and the rest will be on upgrades,turf,fencing and furniture. $150k is a good deposit! Works out we will have $200k equity in our new place when it's constructed. First build means nearly no stamp duty as we qualified for the grant too Re: Ideas needed. 4Feb 24, 2016 8:42 am Thanks piscean and deejay08 for your replies. Sounds like my best option is to make do and tidy up. Wait for the prices to come back up and sell later down the track! Re: Ideas needed. 5Feb 25, 2016 3:48 am It would also be a good idea to get a couple of re agents out and see what they think. If they are experienced they should have a good idea of where the local market is heading and what sort of places buyers are looking for. e.g. do people have a problem with buying fibro houses? Is land for kdr sought after etc. I know in my area, development and kdr sites are sought after no matter what the current construction of house is. The old houses are fairly worthless, even the brick construction and larger ones, but the land is in demand because it is a well positioned older suburb. Re: Ideas needed. 6Jul 29, 2016 1:53 pm Dont over capitalise. I made a lot of money just by doing up all the superficial areas and just sitting tight for a few years. Agree with Piscean on land value so this is best of both worlds. I would say both styles you have pictured are steel. The lower chord of the first pic would be a massive lump if made using timber considering the size of the rafters. If… 1 6150 Hi guys We have just removed a very large grape vine which was mounted to a structure along this wall. This is a shared wall with our neighbour, and after removal, we… 0 3953 |