Adding On To Your Home Versus Trading Up in Boston's western suburbs

This article first ran last fall and is being reposted by demand!

Last week a friend of mine toting her fourth child at a PTO meeting asked my advice about whether she should add on to her current home or trade up to a larger home. My husband and I are professional “rehabbers”, and have completed a number of renovations/additions on both primary homes and investment properties. We have lived through four rehab/additions while raising a growing family. During our first two projects we labored on weekends only while working at full-time day jobs and raising one (very patient and adaptable) son. Since our twin daughters arrived, we have completed two successful renovation/addition projects. (Warning: I do not recommend that the average citizen or even the “weekend warrior” consider such an undertaking! My husband had become a full-time builder by then.)

We moved last year to our current home which I refer to as the “ten-year house” and are taking a break from rehabs. Even though we have managed to make three of our four homes within Wellesley, Massachusetts, it is still too much of a disruption for our family to begin swinging our hammers and moving on.

Which leads me back to my friend. Though she and her husband are very handy and have done a considerable amount of work on their restored Victorian, I suggested she consider the following questions to aid her decision making.

1. Is the house conducive to an addition? In many homes it is easy to see the possibilities i.e., adding a second floor to a ranch or creating a new kitchen/family room in a colonial. However, it is important to consider scale and style to make sure the addition isn’t the proverbial tail wagging the dog and dwarfing the original house or not working in concert with its style.

2. Is the lot conducive to an addition? In Wellesley and most towns, there are many small lots and additions are subject to detailed rules and regulations established by the town. Do you have the room to add on or will you be sacrificing the best part of your yard? Will you end up with a pleasing yard that meets your use requirements?

3. Have you considered all the uses of the space you have? In my friend’s case, she is using her walk-up third floor for storage which she could convert to a bedroom or two. This would be considerably less expensive than an addition. (Though we haven’t figured out where she could store the stuff being stored!

4. Do you love your neighbors? Granted, we are a mobile society; people relocate in and out of neighborhoods all the time and there is no guarantee that your best pals next door will be there in five years. In our case, our closest friends are neighbors from four neighborhoods ago! That neighborhood was unusually close-knit and we had block parties, get-togethers and gatherings on a regular basis. I still feel a pang when I hear that we missed an impromptu dinner or group chat by the fence though we are honorary guests at all planned festivities.

5. Are you willing to live through a major disruption? Our last kitchen renovation ran smoothly and on time. However, we had no kitchen for a month! (It probably would have been longer had we not needed to be finished to host a birthday dinner for my sister - I was asleep before the guests departed.) There are always unanticipated delays and in my experience they have been extremely disruptive to daily life.

6. How much is your house worth in today’s market and how much do you have to spend on a new home? Here is where my professional expertise comes into play. A good realtor will educate you on the local market and provide a comparative market analysis to give you an excellent sense of how to price your home for sale. Also, by visiting houses on the market in the areas where you want to live, you might find that the money invested in a renovation is better spent in a house that offers the space you seek.

My friend is still mulling her options and now feels she is armed with the right information to make an informed decision.

Jane Neilson

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