Making the decision between moving to a new home and improving your current one can be a really tough one. We look at the pros and cons of moving versus improving, paying attention to the costs involved and the options you’d have to fund your home improvement at no extra cost.

Moving

The possible costs associated with your considered choice to move would include:

• The difference between your old home and your new house
• Sale costs
• Removal costs
• Hidden costs

The difference between your old home and your new house

Usually, the difference in property values which you’ll have to fund is done so through taking out a bigger mortgage. It’s good practice to find out what the costs of the subsequent mortgage arrangement and valuation fees will likely be.

Sale costs

Sale costs can be rather extensive, comprised out of agents fees, conveyancing fees and their associated costs, stamp duty land tax, and disbursements (which include a local authority searches fee, drainage and water search, environmental searches, land registry search fee, bankruptcy search, and a land registry transfer fee).

Removal costs

Removal costs are dependent upon the volume of goods you have to move and the distance between your old and new home, as well as whether or not you pack the goods well yourself or indeed if you’re looking to have a company protect some of the larger items of value for you.

Hidden costs

On average, a new home comes with +/- 5,750 in a range of hidden costs, including repair bills and problems such as subsidence, structural defects, and rot. Some possible hidden costs for some redecorations, maintenance and repairs might have to be factored-in to your budget, while a survey of your prospective home purchase might do well to protect you against these hidden costs. You might also come into additional costs with replacing appliances that don’t fit into spaces in your new home properly. Always try to find the best prices for high-price items like appliances by comparing with review sites like Only Reviews.

Improving

If you’re looking a lot closer to your existing home then with the deployment of the right approach you can fund your home improvements at no extra monthly mortgage cost.

A 3-bedroom house can be turned into a 4-bedroom house for less than 10,000 and this would be a project which could even have you enjoying an en-suite bathroom as part of the bargain! Since bathrooms don’t need an external window, it can be moved to the master bedroom or to another room which can be created by making a room between the front and rear bathrooms.

A home can be vastly improved by just giving it a good thorough clean. You don’t notice it, but after a few years of living there your home will have accumulated a wealth of ingrained dirt and grime that you can’t remove using conventional cleaning methods. One area that can be improved the most with cleaning is the carpets, which may be stained, dusty or mouldy. With carpet cleaning in San Diego or somewhere else that you might live, you can get a professional cleaning service to restore your carpets to good as new.

If you’re thinking a bit bigger, you could knock down an internal wall located between a dining room and kitchen to create some space which is a lot more usable, resulting in a more open-plan of which the alternative can be turning the wall into a dining area that separates the kitchen from the dining room. For this, you’ll need a Dumpster Rental to remove all of the waste material, but once it’s all tidied up you’ll notice a huge change in the feel of your space.

A chimney breast can be removed for some extra storage.

An existing loft or cellar space can be converted by installing a new bathroom in that area.

The living space can be enlarged through the construction of a small rear living room extension, with plenty of ideas and detailed plans available from your Mortgage Brokers as to exactly what is possible.