A house may seem perfect when you move in, but it can begin to feel cramped as your family grows. When that happens, you have two options: you can move to a bigger house or build an addition. One is not always a better choice than the other. You need to weigh the pros and cons of your current house and neighborhood, and the potential financial implications, to decide which is a better option for you.
Is an Addition Possible?
The first thing you need to do is to figure out if building an addition is feasible. If you have a large yard and want to add one or two rooms, it may not be a problem. If your yard is small, however, you may not be able to build an addition and still have enough space for enjoying your yard. You might also hit a snag because of local zoning laws. If you want to add another floor to the house, you need to consider local laws, as well as how that would make your home look.
How Much Do You Love Your House?
Think about how attached you’re to your current home. If you have made a lot of memories there, you may be reluctant to let go of the house. You and your children may also have friends in the neighborhood, and your children may be attached to their classmates and teachers.
What Makes More Financial Sense?
You also need to weigh the financial costs of both moving and building an addition. In many cases, it’s cheaper to build an addition than to buy a new house, but that’s not always true. It depends on the local real estate market and local building costs. You might discover that building an addition will require major structural changes to your house that will make it prohibitively expensive, or you might find a great deal on another house that is too good to pass up.
An addition may or may not add to the resale value of a house. It depends on the size of the addition, how the rooms are used and how they fit in with the rest of the house. If an addition is well designed, it may raise the sale price of a house. If it takes up so much space that there is only a tiny yard left, it could lower the house’s value.
Weigh Your Options Carefully
Deciding whether to move or build an addition requires careful consideration. It may be better to stay in the house you love and expand it; however, in some cases, it might make more sense to move. Consider the design of your home, how attached your family is to it, how the cost of building an addition compares to the cost of moving and the long-term financial implications to make the best choice.
