Home addition cost, home addition benefits, house addition financial factors
Building a Houston house addition can create more space and increase your home’s value, but the process requires an enormous amount of planning and preparation. This is due to the fact that house additions require construction documents and structural engineering to attach a new structure to an existing one. It is also necessary to open the envelope of the existing home to complete the attachment of the structures.
The home addition process begins with the financial feasibility of the project. Evaluating the need and financial feasibility of a home addition can be a complex endeavor.
For there are a range of reasons that owners consider a room addition and require the services of a home addition contractor. We will discuss the process of evaluating the attributes of a room addition and look at preparing for the building of a house addition.
Prior to starting the design of your Houston home addition, you will need to confirm a few things about your project. First, you will need a property survey to determine if the room addition will properly fit within the building setbacks and property line.
Secondly, you will need to review the property’s deed restrictions to confirm your compliance. If your home development has an HOA (homeowners association), it is necessary for Houston to get the HOA’s approval before submitting your construction documents for a building permit.
Provided you are in compliance with the HOA, you will need to develop construction documents for soliciting construction bids for the improvements and obtaining a building permit. There are many details to address regarding planning the construction logistics that require the services of a room addition contractor. The owner should hire a room addition contractor as early in the process as possible.
During several times in one’s adult life, one will face multiple dynamic changes in their life that cause them to rethink their home living space needs. This can be the result of many different life-changing events.
Sometimes we move our household for career or job-related reasons. Other times a home move can be for personal reasons. We will restrict the focus of our discussion to life’s typical cycles from getting married to living in an empty nest.
The topics of the value of building a home addition requirement are;
- Life cycle changes impact house needs,
- Benefits of home addition,
- Home addition cost,
- Financial factors of room addition,
Life Cycle Changes
The first milestone is generally associated with getting married. You may be renting or even owning a home, but when you get married it typically results in buying a mutual home. This could be a need for additional space or this could be because you got married and both you and your spouse agreed you would get a joint property.
The second typical milestone is usually associated with having children. In these situations, it is very common to move to a larger home in a specific area of your city. This is often driven by you choosing a specific school district, but more often your decision for a larger home is due to the need for more space.
Depending on your financial resources, this can cause a younger couple to move away from the metro area to the outlying areas of larger cities. As commonly known, this is where you can get more home for your hard-earned dollar. If you chose to buy in a large city metro area, you most certainly will pay a greater amount for a larger home in a good school district.
The third typical milestone where life’s cycles challenge your housing decisions is when the children leave the nest. This can cause the homeowner to evaluate their space needs and determine that the floor plan no longer serves their future lifestyles, which can also result in another home change. Unless you are prepared to substantially downsize, it can be socially and emotionally challenging to move from the family home.
This leads to deliberation regarding lifestyle choices with respect to how your home will serve your future needs. You love the neighborhood; the home will accommodate extended family visits and you like the home that you are living in.
So instead of seeking a new home, you give some serious thought to identifying your changing lifestyle needs and begin to reimage how you can repurpose your space needs. This often leads to adding a house addition to the existing structure and reinventing your space. Explore the options for house additions building design.
Benefits of Building a House Addition in Houston
There are many benefits for a homeowner to consider expanding the envelope of their existing home. The most significant benefit to building a house addition in Houston to your existing home is that it is simply the best and most cost-effective financial alternative you have to a space problem with your home.
Building a house addition becomes extremely financially attractive compared to buying a new home when you take into account the expenses associated with the relocation cost.
When you add up the cost of commissions, closing costs, and moving expenses associated with buying a new home, the cost of a major addition or renovation becomes an attractive solution. We will review a few supporting financial scenarios further in this discussion.
The second most significant benefit to the homeowner is that you can design nearly anything you desire. After you have carefully considered your changing lifestyle needs, it is helpful to discuss your options with a design-build remodeling professional.
They will listen to your needs and review any documents or ideas that you present in an effort to explore possible options available.
Once you explore your feasible options you should consider contracting to design your improvements to determine if they will fit your expected future needs. A professional design-build general contractor should be able to design your addition and improvements within your target budget. Professional design build contractors have both design capabilities as well as building contractor skills.
Home Addition Cost
The room addition cost can vary dramatically for a variety of reasons such as how accessible the room addition is for building equipment, material deliveries, and protecting the existing structure when connected.
The home addition cost also varies per the square footage of the house addition. The square footage price is much higher for smaller square footage home additions.
If the home addition cost total is $100,000 for a 200 sf room addition, for the identical type of building but slightly larger room addition the cost might be $125,000 for a 300 sf house addition.
When the owner increases the house addition footage by marginal amounts, the price per square footage reduces. There is an optimum size of scale that holds true in smaller square footage projects.
Financial Factors of a Room Addition
One of the important matters in weighing alternative considerations is understanding the inherent value loss in the selling and buying transaction process.
When you add square footage to your home you increase the value while preserving the capital appreciation in value accumulated over the years. When you sell your existing home and buy another home in a nearby neighborhood, the increased value appreciation from your existing home is lost in the transaction.
You do not actually lose the cash value during the transaction, but rather your capital appreciation is offset by the sales price of the home you are buying. A portion of the sales price of the home you are buying reflects the capital appreciation that the seller has accumulated.
Hence your capital appreciation from your sales price is negated by the seller’s capital appreciation realized.
Depending on what area of Houston you live in, the home and land prices have traditionally increased by 3% – 6% annually. Based upon a modest home value in metro Houston of $700,000 over a period of 5 years would represent $175,000 in value appreciation at 5%.
If you use the average value of $1,300,000 for higher-end neighborhoods over the same period at 5% annually, the appreciation would be $325,000 in a 5-year period. In both these cases over a short period of time, the value appreciation by itself would be more the pay for your addition or major renovation to your existing home.
Another important often overlooked matter in a sell/buy scenario is the actual cost associated with transaction cost. The transaction cost is represented by sales commissions on your sold property, your closing cost on both sides of the transaction, and your moving cost.
Let’s look at both of our previous scenarios (commissions 6%, closing cost 1.5%, moving cost .5%). In the case of the $700,000 sell/buy scenario, your total transaction cost would likely be approximately $56,000. Total potential value transfer loss of $231,000 = ($56,000 + $175,000). In the case of the $1,300,000 sell/buy scenario, your total would represent approximately $104,000.
A total potential value transfer loss of $429,000 = ($104,000 + 325,000). It is worth mentioning that these costs do not take into consideration the expenses associated with making any personal improvements to the new home you might purchase.
One final benefit worth your attention if you are approaching the senior age group. For those homeowners whose home represents their homestead exemption in Houston and are over the age of 65, they will receive additional benefits in favorable property tax treatment.
There are additional tax benefits from the cap on your home’s taxable value and additional homestead exemptions that seniors benefit from.
This gets even better when you consider you can also increase the value of your existing home’s square footage while enjoying the valuation cap after improvement cost adjustments.
So as presented, you should give a home addition and/or a major renovation some serious consideration as a viable option for seeking an alternative home when life’s home cycles present you with some challenges.
Conclusion
Understanding your house addition needs, the home addition cost is required to appreciate if a room addition is your best option for a home with more space. With the advice of a professional home addition contractor and detailed financial feasibility, the owner can make a much better evaluation if building a home addition is a good idea for you. For more about deciding between building a new home or conducting a home addition.
