no wrong again

 

"Home improvements as a waste of money"

Have you considered that some people just might want to improve their home to give them a better standard of living?

Have you been educating yourself using the Daily Mail again?

 

Clearly not:

House Prices: Home improvements are a waste of money - Telegraph

If only you liberal types could adopt the habit of reading before spouting your opinions....

 

I strongly believe that first appearances are critical for a prospective buyer and anything that helps this is money well spent.

With this in mind, a careful look at our financial commitments, and a long discussion we decided to go ahead and bought a brand spanking new brass door knocker. Transformed the property

dl

 

Excellent point, it's not just about money.

Got to love the way 'certain' people on here seem to revel in a downturn in the economy and possible recession. A very weird personality trait IMO.

 

since my old man died at xmas, my mam has been trying to keep herself busy, mainly by wasting a wod of cash on the house (4 bed, 2 gardens, faaaaar to much space for 1 old woman + my sis, who will move out soon)

she came into a reasonable amount as the old man was wise.

new kitchen,both bathrooms, her bedroom, living room, dining room, external doors, including patio, etc etc

ffs the house is only about 10 years old

i keep trying to tell her to stop wasting the bloody cash but she is listening to the wrong people, it is doing my head in, she does not understand that the cash she has left has to last her until she is paggered (she is only 50ish)

she cant work due to a few problems, anyway i tried to tell her yet again a few weeks back when she asked me to look after 6k in one of my safes "because i am getting a conservatory, and they want paid in cash" while i was talking to her in the garden she had some blokes redoing the insulation in the walls ???? (again, not needed its a new build)

it is going to be a ****ty bodged conservatory, not worth **** all IMHO on the price of the house, the patio doors were done crap IMO, the tradesmen are probably rubbing hands with joyus (sp?) glee

it pisses me off, what was even worse was that she said not to worry as she still had loads left, which equates to around 2 years wages for the average person she seams to think that wasting all this cash on **** "renovations" for the house will be better for us as her children as the house will be "worth more" when she is gone.

20 years time its all going to look old fashioned anyway

i know for a fact that she is going to run out of cash, and i will have to fooken do the decent thing because nobody else will

 

Some improvements do add value and some don't. It also depends on what you pay for a property, you need to pay less than the cost of the improvements and a hassle factor premium.

 

i would agree, but a 6k conservatory is going to be gash IMO and not worth **** all in the long term

same with the doors that were replaced, the patio doors might look nice at first, but close inspection is rough as hell, i had to fit rubber pads myself to the hinges as they were fouling in the walls when opening

 

I know, hence the first line of my post

 

[QUOTE StickyMicky
i know for a fact that she is going to run out of cash, and i will have to fooken do the decent thing because nobody else will [/QUOTE]


You do know its against the law to kill her dont you !

 

What about those of us that just want to add space as we will be here at least another 10 years, and are not really interested in adding value or not?

UB, your desire to laugh at the thought of someone doing some home improvement and not adding much value is not a very nice trait to see in another person.

 

isnt it obvious that home improvements don't increase the value of a property? its like spending 5k on a car and expecting to get an extra 7k ontop of what its worth? you only make money on houses if you can do work yourself and just pay trade prices for materials used. most of the moeny that is made on properties is over long periods of time when the market value increases, if and when it does for the area you live in.

 

That's not stricty true, it depends on property/area.

We can add another 2 double bedrooms/en-suite, new kitchen, 2 family rooms, utility room and an office for about £50k (had the builder round pricing up yesterday).

The house would then be worth at least £70k more than it is now in this area as it would open it up to a much bigger market. It helps that our location is excellent though and demand still high.

 

Don't all these extensions etc. put up the council tax something wicked eventually?

Les