Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

hi all!!

i had posted a thread about doing a dormer on our house.. well now DH and i talked about the possibilites.. so now its a decision on whether to dormer or buy bigger.

and i am so torn about this because i love our neighbors and i love our cute little house...
BUT i know the way the market is right now and if we can get a bigger house thats already updated its the way to go.

now we already said that if we put our house on the market we cannot take lower than a certain amount.. because obviously we dont want to take a huge loss on our house either... we already know we wouldnt get what we paid for..but we have a number that we would put it up for that we can deal with..

so WWYD??
any tips or advice would be great!!
thanks!!

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

in all honesty, you have to make a list of the pros and cons including price. houses are so low now you might be able to get exactly what you want, completely done for the same price of adding on the dormers depending on how much work you have done.

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

it would depend on the cost to me... i love where i live- location, neighbors, property etc. so if i needed a bigger house, i would prob dormer, renovate etc rather than moving. moving is an added expense and added stress so i think you should compare pricing. would it be cheaper to dormer than buy bigger? if you are happy where you are and it's cheaper to dormer, that'd be my answer. however if you don't mind moving, and you would rather the stress of a move than the stress of construction and prices are comparable - then there's your answer. it all comes down to pros and cons.

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

yea i suppose that it will come down to pro's and Con's..

im also thinking that maybe the first thing we should do is get estimates for the dormer..and if they give us great quotes..than thats they way to go.. who knows!!

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

We went through the same process last year. We like our neighbors and our neighborhood. Between sales tax, closing costs, REA fees, moving costs, etc, etc, we figured that we'd either break even or save money by adding a huge addition to our house. But this way, I got to design the layout, I get to watch the entire building process, I get to choose every little detail that goes into the house, etc.

It all comes down to your individual pros and cons, like the APs mentioned. For us, the math leaned toward addition.

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

Posted by MetsGirl07

Posted by GoldenRod

We went through the same process last year. We like our neighbors and our neighborhood. Between sales tax, closing costs, REA fees, moving costs, etc, etc, we figured that we'd either break even or save money by adding a huge addition to our house. But this way, I got to design the layout, I get to watch the entire building process, I get to choose every little detail that goes into the house, etc.

It all comes down to your individual pros and cons, like the APs mentioned. For us, the math leaned toward addition.

ahhh..gotcha! that makes sense.. hey i can start my pro and con list from this thread as well !!

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

I would def start the pro & con list, but I would also start to get some quotes for the dormer, so you can finalize that pro & con list. GL with your decision.

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

No advice here, just wishing you good luck with the decision. We are in the same place right now. We know that next spring we either need to move or build out. Just can't decide which would be best.

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

Posted by ave1024

Posted by MetsGirl07

Posted by GoldenRod

We went through the same process last year. We like our neighbors and our neighborhood. Between sales tax, closing costs, REA fees, moving costs, etc, etc, we figured that we'd either break even or save money by adding a huge addition to our house. But this way, I got to design the layout, I get to watch the entire building process, I get to choose every little detail that goes into the house, etc.

It all comes down to your individual pros and cons, like the APs mentioned. For us, the math leaned toward addition.

ahhh..gotcha! that makes sense.. hey i can start my pro and con list from this thread as well !!

Yeah GoldenRod makes some good points.

Remember even if you buy into a nice new neighborhood, you never know what hidden issues you may end up with.

There are crazy people even in nice neighborhoods. Your neighbors could be total wackjobs. The house you are buying may have tons of issues that an inspector can't detect right away.

I would probably only move if a basement means something to you because that is something you can't add to your house.

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

You can always put it on the market knowing you won't budge on the price and see what happens.

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

I love my house, love my town. I would dormer.

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

I think I would dormer b/c I love my block I wish I could take it with me!

I know 2 people that put their house up for sale recently and with the headache, closing costs, RE fees, taxes etc they both ended up dormering. HTH.

Keep us posted. I know I for one am curious what you decide since I am thinking the same thing.

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

We are going to look into getting some estimates now for expanding our home...

Other than Laresn, anyone have anyone they recommend?
Thanks,
Scott

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

We faced the same situation - move or expand our house. We decided to go to some open houses to see what was out there, as well as get some estimates for the expansion. We looked for a few months, at a lot of homes, and didn't really find anything we were happy with. There were a couple possibilities, but we ruled them out for one reason or another. So, we proceeded with the expansion.

As for the cost/inconvenience, I don't think it's much different. Depending what type of work you're having done on your house, you will need to pack up and move a lot of things out (and maybe even yourselves) and then move everything back in, not to mention the mess inside and out. It will cost more than you think, more than you budget because things come up that you want to change (since all the work is going on anyway) or upgrade or fix or add (like CAC or hardwood floors). We decided to refinance to pay for it so we paid some closing costs anyway.

For us, we really like our neighborhood, neighbors and location but if we found the right house we would have moved. Now that the expansion is complete (and we are in the middle of our kitchen reno) we are happy with our decision.

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

We have been going to open houses to see what is out there. So far we found some nice houses but they do not have everything we want. We found a really nice house in levittown, island trees schools that was totally redone. Only 2 studs were from the original house. It was fully dormered and expanded. Really high quality materials were used. We loved the house, but they were asking alot, and were not flexible on the price. We didnt think the house in that area was worth that. Then yesterday we saw a split in Mass park with farmingdale schools. The house has the stucco exterior, and a lot of amenities that we are looking for, but the bedrooms were small and there was no garage. The price was very affordable but it didnt have everything we wanted. This will be our second house and probably our last house...I want it to be something we could raise our family in and be happy there for many years to come.

If we expand we could build the house how we want.....

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

we have been tossing back and forth move or addition and we have finally decided to move. We were in contract with this house when a water view for less came on the market and I've regretted it since - so we want a new location (not that ours is bad)

it's more of a gut feeling than logic sometimes.

Re: Buy a bigger house or Dormer our own?? need advice!!

Danielle and I looked at a double dormered levitt cape on Bell lane today. They had an open house.

The house was basically brand new. Inside he moved the kitchen to the back of the house where the dining room or master bedroom would be in a cape. The inside of the house was totally opened up.

On the main level was a 1 car garage - Granite kitchen with dark cherry cabinets, hardwood floors throughout except the tiled foyer.

1 full bath

A room that would be an office

Upstairs there were 3 huge bedrooms, 1 full bath with a jacuzzi, and a laundry room.

There were also pull down stairs for the attic

Then there was a huge master bedroom suite, with his and hers walk in closets and another full bath with a jacuzzi tub

All together 3 full bathrooms

4 bedrooms upstairs with the master.

This is what we would want to do with our house......The builder di an excellent job and used high end materials.

They are asking $549k for the house...Its a little over priced for the area, and especially since the backyard faces an office building....but the house was really nice and it gave us some ideas for our own cape.

Scott