Should You Move Or Improve To Achieve Your Perfect Home?

February 29, 2024

Home improvements can add value to your property and also enhance your quality of life. 

However the cost of home improvement can be prohibitive, and they can also cause a lot of inconvenience and disruption to daily living. 

Finding reliable tradespeople who have the right qualifications for the job can also be a difficult task if you are not looking to carry out the work yourself. It’s no surprise that these factors can make some people delay taking on a new project. Some people might decide that moving house is a more preferable option than investing in their current home.

However, this is not always the best course of action. Moving brings its own stresses and is a hugely time consuming process. You will need to prepare your own home for sale, appoint an estate agent, engage a solicitor, transfer your mortgage arrangements…not to mention the process of identifying and viewing potential new homes to buy.

There’s a lot of hidden costs involved in moving house, besides the agent fees and legal expenses. You will need to pay stamp duty, broker fees, surveyors costs, removal services…the list goes on. It’s also likely that the survey will throw up a few issues that need addressing in your new property, such as replacing the boiler or a couple of windows.

Furthermore, you will no doubt want to put your own stamp on the property and redecorate or renovate at least one or two rooms. You may find hidden problems that didn’t come up on the survey, adding to your expenses yet further. All this is besides the stress and effort of packing up and unpacking all of your worldly possessions…

When you weigh this against the relatively brief disruption and more predictable costs involved in improving your existing home, the latter can start to look like the more attractive option. Staying put and improving or extending is often the favoured option for families who do not want to interrupt their children’s education or move away from friends and family.

However, this does of course depend on what your needs and preferences are. Research shows that some home improvements can actually devalue your property, and often these are the most disruptive and time consuming projects to carry out. 

For example, knocking out walls to convert two smaller bedrooms into one larger room is risky, because there is a direct correlation between the number of bedrooms and the value of your home, no matter how small that third or fourth bedroom might be. 

Extravagant renovations to a regular terrace or semi detached house, such as digging out a basement wine cellar or home cinema, can also backfire because most people are not looking for these features in a smaller home. In larger homes, luxury features such as high-maintenance landscaping or outdoor swimming pools rarely add value.

According to Propertymark, the most reliable ways to add value to your home with a bigger project, and also to improve it for your own enjoyment or convenience include loft conversions, garage conversions, and adding a conservatory. 

Also in the recommended top ten improvements are kitchen and bathroom makeovers. This could mean anything from installing new tiles on the floor or walls, to ripping everything out and starting over. Consider your budget and how much time you have to invest in the project.

For example, tiling is a skilled job, so unless you already have plenty of DIY experience and the time and patience to fit them yourself, it might be worth having them professionally installed. This will ensure that your tiles look great and there will be no annoying imperfections or wastage through damaged or broken tiles. 

If you want to do more than simply refresh the style of your kitchen or bathroom, then consider carefully what you want to achieve with the renovation. Is it to increase the functionality and space, future-proof the room, add value to your house, or replace outdated fixtures and fittings that have reached the end of their lifespan?

Address the layout, storage, lighting, ventilation and materials you will use in each case. For the best results, you may choose to work with a professional designer. 

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