An Addition or New Home: Which is the Smarter Investment?

Before you decide, consider these factors

If your house is suddenly bursting at the seams due to the birth of a child, older family members moving in, or perhaps the expansion of a home business, you’ve probably tossed this question around: Should we move or get an addition? Either choice could solve your problem, but be sure to think about these five areas before you do anything:

Don’t just look at the price tag

Unless you plan on significantly increasing the size of your home, an addition will be less expensive than a new home, but this is just on the surface. This doesn’t factor in the price you will get for your current home. Depending on the area you’re looking at and the housing market, the costs may even out, or you may be able to sell your home and buy a bigger one for less than the cost of an addition.

New space means new expenses

Extra space is always good, especially if you have kids and they will be able to get their own rooms. However, you have to think about what this means for your wallet. More space will result in larger energy bills, more things to clean both inside and out, and higher property taxes.

You could lose a lot of lands

If you can’t add another story to your home, you’ll have to expand outward, which means infringing on your yard space. If you have older children or ones that will be leaving the nest soon, this may not be a big deal, but if your young kids enjoy spending time outside, you could be drastically shrinking their play area.

It may not be worth it down the road

If you put an addition on your home, you should be able to at least add the amount of money you spent (and hopefully more) onto its value, right? Well, logically speaking, yes. But not necessarily. Again, a lot depends on the housing market at the time of the sale. If there aren’t a lot of people looking for bigger houses – or things like less land or added expenses that come with a larger home play a role – you could be out of luck.

Stress-free additions pretty much don’t exist

The end result of an addition is great; once that final nail is in place and you have that beautiful new room or rooms, it’s cause for celebration. However, getting there may be cause for therapy. An addition could take months, and this means your home will be full of strangers, noise, and chaos for all of that time. Not only will this cause you stress, it could actually hurt your relationship with your spouse!

Even if you’re 90 percent sure you want to put an addition on your house, it’s still worthwhile to look at the homes for sale in your area that can meet all of your needs. To see what’s available, just get in touch with Dante Disabato. We promise we can find you just what you’re looking for that won’t have to involve any sawdust. Call us today at 239-537-5351 or fill out our contact form.