A: Doubling the size of your house might suit you while you live there - and if you're planning to be there for 10 or more years, then why not? However, you are right to be nervous about pricing your house out of the market. You don't mention the size of your garden, but you must also consider whether your new, improved property would feel squeezed into the footprint of your house and garden. If it will, it's almost certainly worth going for something less ambitious.
Begin by research the local market. You can do that through search engines, such as the 4Homes Property Search. Talk to estate agents, too, to find out if there’s a demand for larger houses in your area, and what those with five or six bedrooms are going for - and how quickly they are selling.
You also need to ask yourself questions about your potential buyers. Is there a need for larger houses in your area? Are large families likely to move to your road? The answers lie in local facilities - is there good off-street parking for a large car or two cars; are there lots of schools nearby; are there good shopping centres in the area? If the answer is: 'no' to one or more of these pretty obvious questions, you need to ask yourself whether you would ever find anyone who would want to live there.
Another point is that it’s not always a good idea to make your home the largest in a street of similar properties, as it’s likely there’ll be a ‘ceiling’ price above which buyers won’t pay, even with the extra rooms. You can find out what houses locally have sold for at Up My Street. This will give you a more accurate indicator than checking to see how much they went up for sale at.
The next thing you need to do is cost up the price of the work. If it will end up costing more than the extra value you would immediately add to your home, it's clearly not worth doing, if profit is your main preoccupation. If you are planning to stay in your home for some years, you can probably bank on a rising market covering your outlay. However, the market has slowed down significantly recently, so be cautious.
How to cost up the work? The best way to do so is to get at least three reputable building companies round to give you a quote (not an estimate). For links to finding builders locally, see page one of this feature. Give each of them a detailed, written spec, and ask them to quote against each of the elements within the spec, so you can see, job-for-job, how much things will cost. Don't forget to include the absolute basics, such as new light switches, skirting boards and doors - these may seem like small details, but the purchase and fitting of them can really add up. The Federation of Master Builders has good advice about what you should include here.
Once you've got your three quotes in - and don't expect them to come in quickly, builders are notorious for hating paperwork - you can add them up and divide by three to get a rough idea of how much the work will cost. Don't be surprised if the quotes differ wildly, but don't dismiss the most expensive as unrealistic. Instead, add a 20 per cent contingency fund to your total, just to be on the safe side.
Finally, to ensure saleability, your house will need to be evenly balanced. If you propose adding several bedrooms – for example by extending out over the garage and into the loft - without increasing downstairs living space, it will become top heavy and won’t appeal to many purchasers. Who wants a six bedroom house with one small living room and a pokey kitchen? Consider, too, the impact your build will have on the size of your garden. Again, a large family house demands a good-sized garden, so don't steal too much exterior space.
All of these elements should help you decide on how large your extension will be. To get a fair comparison, it's worth going to the effort (and it will be an effort) of repeating all the processes above for a more modest, two-storey extension. That way, you'll be able to work out relatively which will be a better bet.
Top tips from George Clarke and Naomi Cleaver!
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