Pop the top vs going back

[Anonymous]

Even a cheap new build is easier to sell than anything pop up over the existing foundation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even a cheap new build is easier to sell than anything pop up over the existing foundation.

And if people's interest is in selling the house soon that makes sense. Otherwise, there are lots of us who either aren't able to spend $500,000 right now or who just feel more comfortable spending $300,000 on the house we plan to stay in for a long time. There is no one right answer that applies to everyone on this board, yet someone always weighs in with the ever-so-helpful "tear it down."

[Anonymous]

In my neighborhood, you have a pretty wide range of homes. Unrenovated ramblers, capes and colonials. Lots of rear additions and a few side additions. (Some very nice.) Some very pricey custom infill homes and some much cheaper NDI-type infill homes. Personally, if I were looking at a cheap new home vs. a very nicely renovated older home, I'd probably take the renovated one because I feel like a lot of the cheap new houses are very cookie-cutter. But a lot of folks would choose "new" instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I vote neither. Tear down. It would be cheaper.

Be sure to check your zoning. In DC and maybe even some other close in suburbs with truly old homes, the current setback rules require wider side yards than the current houses have. If you keep your footprint then you are often grandfathered in to go straight back, with the smaller setback on each side. If you tear down you are held to current zoning laws, not the grandfathered ones. Of course you can ask for a variance, but this all comes down to how much time and energy do you want to spend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even a cheap new build is easier to sell than anything pop up over the existing foundation.

And if people's interest is in selling the house soon that makes sense. Otherwise, there are lots of us who either aren't able to spend $500,000 right now or who just feel more comfortable spending $300,000 on the house we plan to stay in for a long time. There is no one right answer that applies to everyone on this board, yet someone always weighs in with the ever-so-helpful "tear it down."

You sound very frustrated -- and it is frustrating because you can easily sink $300K + into additions, but they don't really give you the return.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teardown is not cheaper unless you want the new home to be cheap.

Our pop the top price was $300K and our teardown and rebuild price was $500K. We did not have room to go back.

Op - ask a builder to come out an evaluate your foundation - that will tell you a lot about what your options are.

Both seem on the high side (by about 100K) unless you were going high end and redoing everything (popping the top and gutting the house).

Actually, those were the lower end quotes.

Tear downs do not just include the price of the home - there is excavating, fees, demolition, etc. Those can add up to a lot, especially if you are in a jurisdiction that is not fond of tearing down homes.

The $300K was for a 1600 SF second story, 4 beds, 3 bath and renovating (gutting) 800 sf of the bottom floor of the home (including another bathroom).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teardown is not cheaper unless you want the new home to be cheap.

Our pop the top price was $300K and our teardown and rebuild price was $500K. We did not have room to go back.

Op - ask a builder to come out an evaluate your foundation - that will tell you a lot about what your options are.

Both seem on the high side (by about 100K) unless you were going high end and redoing everything (popping the top and gutting the house).

Do you live in the DC area? A new house for 400K, especially the kind of house people want here? Dreaming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teardown is not cheaper unless you want the new home to be cheap.

Our pop the top price was $300K and our teardown and rebuild price was $500K. We did not have room to go back.

Op - ask a builder to come out an evaluate your foundation - that will tell you a lot about what your options are.

Both seem on the high side (by about 100K) unless you were going high end and redoing everything (popping the top and gutting the house).

Do you live in the DC area? A new house for 400K, especially the kind of house people want here? Dreaming.

You do realize we are just talking build? So 400K for a new build is doable in this area depending on size but the land value, etc, is a factor. So it isn't really a 400K house.

[Anonymous]

When we looked at this same issue (in DC), it wasn't so much the cost as it was the timeframe for permitting. A one-level addition on the back of the house could breeze through permitting and would be done in months. The whole second floor on a ranch was almost a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even a cheap new build is easier to sell than anything pop up over the existing foundation.

And if people's interest is in selling the house soon that makes sense. Otherwise, there are lots of us who either aren't able to spend $500,000 right now or who just feel more comfortable spending $300,000 on the house we plan to stay in for a long time. There is no one right answer that applies to everyone on this board, yet someone always weighs in with the ever-so-helpful "tear it down."

You sound very frustrated -- and it is frustrating because you can easily sink $300K + into additions, but they don't really give you the return.

Thanks, but I'm not frustrated at all. I just get annoyed at the knee-jerk advice to tear it down. It really isn't the best choice for everyone. I'm very happy in my house. We have the house we want for the price we wanted. Return isn't an issue for us, luckily, since we bought a long time ago and the value has increased tremendously. We just didn't want to spend 500K when we could get what we want for significantly less. That's why I say that there isn't a one-size-fits-all answer.

[Anonymous]

I live in Spring Valley. In Spring Valley and neighboring Wesley Heights, you see at least 10 additions for every 1 tear-down. (And the new builds have trouble selling. A 1.9m home with addition sold within days on my block. The 2.2m or so new build continues to languish. On another street, the new build went for 5.5 while the renovation and addition 6.5 for neighboring properties.)

For nice, well-maintained older homes, residents overwhelmingly choose to go the addition-route. Price is rarely an object in these decisions, so draw your own conclusions from this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we looked at this same issue (in DC), it wasn't so much the cost as it was the timeframe for permitting. A one-level addition on the back of the house could breeze through permitting and would be done in months. The whole second floor on a ranch was almost a year.

Permits can take forever, or not, it all depends. Just got a permit for an additional floor plus a 2 story addition within 2 months. However I know others whose permit processing is taking 5-10 months, but those are mostly asking for variances of some kind though. A one level addition can be permitted in a week as you mentioned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in Spring Valley. In Spring Valley and neighboring Wesley Heights, you see at least 10 additions for every 1 tear-down. (And the new builds have trouble selling. A 1.9m home with addition sold within days on my block. The 2.2m or so new build continues to languish. On another street, the new build went for 5.5 while the renovation and addition 6.5 for neighboring properties.)

For nice, well-maintained older homes, residents overwhelmingly choose to go the addition-route. Price is rarely an object in these decisions, so draw your own conclusions from this.

Spring Valley is different. Those houses were nice to begin with. The other 90% of this area was cheaply built, tiny houses.

[Anonymous]

Additions are lipstick on a pig. Building new is less maintenance and a higher resale and better roi.

[Anonymous]

Again, those blanket proclamation is what makes the "teardown crowd" look like fools. While tearing down may be good advice in most cases, it is not universal. You appear to be ignorant of this or, worse, as if you have a vested interest in convincing people to tear down.