To dormer or look for another house?

If you were in that situation, how did you decide?

I love my neighborhood and my neighbors, but I just need more space and a different layout on the first floor.

Any advice will be appreciated.

Thanks!

Re: To dormer or look for another house?

I was in the same situation as you. We had 4 architects come in and we could not do what we wanted within our budget. We bought high in 2007 and the cost of dormering didn't make sense. We have decided to sell and move on, as much as we love our block, we don't love our house. :(

To dormer or look for another house?

We plan to dormer down the road. We bought our house for the property and location, and bought when the market was low.

To dormer or look for another house?

We bought our current house as a starter home and we bought when the market was low. It is a great house, and we will stay here for at least another 3-4 years -- the house could definitely accommodate a child, and maybe even 2 but things might be space wise a little too tight for our liking at that point. We'll be in the same predicament as you -- dormer or move. I think we'll end of moving to our ideal town and our forever home. We hope when we are ready to sell, that we'll be able to make a decent profit on the house from all the work we did and will continue to do. If our current home was in our ideal town/location, we'd absolutely dormer, but that's not the case -- when we were looking, we couldn't afford what we wanted, where we wanted.

Re: To dormer or look for another house?

We priced out how much it would cost to make the house how we wanted it. At the same time we looked for homes to move to and had realtors over. We also like our neighborhood and have a huge yard and are taxes are really low.

We ended up staying and just finished construction. I figured about $30k would be eaten up in closing costs alone and didn't want to go back to another 30 year loan.

To dormer or look for another house?

It depends on what you spent on your home and if you can stomach a dormer- permits, inspections, construction...

We plan on dormering, we love our neighborhood, location and house. We also bought at rock bottom pricing and after COMPLETELY remodeling and dormering the house (bathrooms, hvac, landscaping, kitchen, front dormer and adding a bath- everything!) the purchase price of our home plus all construction/renovation expenses come to ~$575.

Comparable houses in our neighborhood start at $650+ and even then, everything would not be to my taste so in our case, it's easy math. Remodeling and dormering is exciting because everything is exactly what you want and to acccomodate how you and your family live but there are headaches that come along with that.

Message edited 8/7/2014 2:27:06 PM.

Re: To dormer or look for another house?

Whatever you think it will cost add 20% and then you will have your number. Sometimes its worth it, sometimes its not. You have to crunch the numbers and really decided if it works for you.

To dormer or look for another house?

We're in the same boat as a few others. We bought our house at the lowest market, at the lowest interest rates, and on top of that we bought it for $50K less than market value on it because it was an estate sale. We bought it initially thinking it would be a starter home, but we have fallen in love with the area, our property, and the idea of having our house paid off well before we are 50. We just finished a MASSIVE gut and remodel of our kitchen and dining room (see our album) and after that we decided that we are definitely here to stay. We'll save up a few more years and probably dormer in 5 years. The plus side is that the rear is already dormered, so it's really only the front dormer we're needing (which makes a HUGE difference).

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Re: To dormer or look for another house?

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Re: To dormer or look for another house?

To dormer or look for another house?

We're in the same situation. But we bought a smaller home, in a nice area that was completely redone. So we paid close to top dollar. It was the right decision for us. But eventually we want to add another bedroom or two upstairs (we have 1 on the main level currently). We are leaning towards dormering. Construction scares me though. I don't know where we'd live during the work.

Message edited 8/8/2014 11:52:54 AM.

Re: To dormer or look for another house?

Re: To dormer or look for another house?

We're going back and forth with this as well.

We completed the drawing process for an addition with an architect, but knowing how much it's going to cost (both in construction costs and taxes), along with the fact that construction can't even begin until Spring 2015 has us wondering if we should consider relocating. Unfortunately we're in the prime area for our district (also a top rated district) so that leaves us considering a neighboring district because they tend to have bigger properties and homes with a top rated district as well. My neighborhood and neighbors are nice, but not compelling enough to make me want to stay here. I just hate like heck to pull my kids out of the school when they've developed relationships with many of the students already. And same could be said for us. We've built friendships with many of the parents within the district. That's what's holding us back.

Message edited 8/8/2014 3:21:48 PM.

Re: To dormer or look for another house?

Just as an aside, keep in mind taxes.

I know a few people whose taxes went up thousands when they added up a story.

Especially in Nassau.

In a situation like that it might make sense to move.

To dormer or look for another house?

I really love my neighborhood. My house is very small though. We've tossed around the idea of moving but we love the neighbors and location. If we can't afford to dormer or extend, we will do a full remodel of our basement and add some bedrooms downstairs. We can add a bathroom and larger windows so it doesn't feel "basement-y" I'm a firm believer in doing what we can afford and not overextending ourselves financially...

Re: To dormer or look for another house?

We ran out of room after I had my third. We moved because we didn't have anywhere to live while dormering. We also wanted a larger yard!

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Re: To dormer or look for another house?

Message edited 8/11/2014 11:54:52 AM.

To dormer or look for another house?

For us, we are dormering. We like our location, our neighbors are pretty nice and we love our backyard. We have a Cape already and we are adding a bathroom and a master suite upstairs. We bought the house when the market was on the downswing, and we refinanced into a really low rate, and our taxes are pretty low right now as well. It's better for us to just dormer then to move.

Re: To dormer or look for another house?

To dormer or look for another house?

we were quoted anywhere from $120-160k to dormer our house. I did the math and it just didn't pay off to do it since we'd never be able to sell for that price. On top of that, I'm not even sure we'd get approved for the loan since we don't have much equity.

That said, moving to a new house would cost about $30k (between closing costs for selling and buying, paying for movers, etc). Plus, we REALLY love our house and the location and just didn't want to move.

In the end, we decided to expand the first floor. Our taxes will go up more than if we dormer, but it'll only cost about $50k for the construction.

HTH

Re: To dormer or look for another house?

If it were me I would do a thorough analysis of costs of both options and go with whatever made the most sense.

Re: To dormer or look for another house?