A&A or Rebuild old 2 story Semi-D?

[engin32us 0]

Hi all, just want to get some advice as a new home owner. 

I just bought an old 2 story Semi - D with land size 3300 sqft. Current floor size 2000 sqft. The doors, fans, ceilings, bathroom and all are very old. Basically requires quite some ID work. 

The land size is not maximized. Side walk and backyard still have a lot of grass. 

I'm wondering if we should do A&A or rebuilt the house? We still want 2 story but with larger living space. We would like to extend the living room side ways and the rooms on the second floor sideways too so that the rooms are bigger. 

Is it better to do A&A or just to tear it all down and rebulid it to a brand new 2 story semi-d?

What are the cost involved and what are the pros and cons of this? I hope not to exceed 600k if we rebuild. 

Newbie so need a lot of help please. thanks!

 

[snoozee 98]

for old houses, it would be better to tear down to rebuild due to limitations of existing structure for any major A&A works.

semi-d rebuild will definitely exceed 600K or even 1M.

your 600k budget is something more of an A&A which isn't too extensive as I saw a quote for a semi-d A&A which ran to close to 800K.

for semi-d, there is a need for a 2m setback at the sides so you are unlikely to be able to extend the house on its side. so most likely the only place you can extend is the backyard. if there is a sewer running through your backyard, you will need to build a RC trench over this sewer before you can extend the house since without the RC trench protection, nothing can be build over the sewer pipe.

I would suggest you look for architects or builders for better advice on what is the best option and costing.

[engin32us 0]

Thanks for your quick response!

Assuming the semi d was bought at 3mil, how much of the A&A value or rebuilt value and be translated into resale value of the house? Given that most 2 story semi d in that area are selling in the range of 2.9 to 3.4. 

[snoozee 98]

if your house on freehold land or 99 years land? if it's 99 years, then it won't make sense to rebuilt. but since you mentioned its very old, i'll assume yours is on freehold land.

I'm not a valuer or property agent so I can't tell you how much increase in value the house will have after the construction works. Even professionals can only give you a new value after seeing the proposed new building plans.
But if you are going to sink in 1M for rebuild, the bank valuation of your rebuilt house should be more than 4M (assuming you paid 3M for existing house and land). From what I understand, valuers use past transaction data of similar houses nearby as well as the physical aspects of the house itself to come out with a monetary value. 

If you are planning to sell after 3 years, you can only cross your fingers that nothing major happens in the next few years to cause the property market to crash.

 

[engin32us 0]

Thanks a lot! Yes my property is freehold. 

We are thinking if we should spend 300k to do it up nicely as we need to strip the floors and redo all the furniture, electrical wiring and all, or we rebuild it. A&A seems to be very troublesome and neither here nor there.

Just wondering which is a better form of investment if we are looking to keep the place for more than 10 years as we are going to live in it. 

[snoozee 98]

I think a lot depends on what is the existing condition and the rooms configuration and whether it suits your needs or not. without tearing down the house, you are always constrained by the existing structure when doing A&A.

but if you are going to do a major A&A, it might be better off just doing a full rebuilt (for maybe 20% to 30% on top of the A&A cost) which means you can design the new house to your liking. paying 3M for 3300sqf of freehold land is still quite a good buy even if you don't keep the existing house.

If budget is not an issue, I would say rebuilt would be the better option.

 

 

[greatrox99 3]

Perhaps you can meet up some contractors for some quotations before deciding..tks

[engin32us 0]

Thanks a lot! Very helpful!

[yoongf 11]

After 10yrs of living in it, even a new house becomes dated, which means the 1mil construction cost is depreciated to zero, leaving just the residual land value. 

Is such a depreciation rate acceptable? Sg ppl typically dun pay a premium for a used structure.

[sillbeers15 7]

I've completed a Reconstruction (URA asked for resubmission as Recon instead of earlier A&A as GFA expansion was too close to botherline of 50%) A&A to my 2 storey 4ksqft land Semi-D into a full 3 storey built in 4ksqft (from 3ksqft) 20mths ago. Firstly, I must say that the cost of construction varies irregardless of size and materials used. It all depends on the contractor willing to accept the quote and have the ability to complete the job according to specification. If one wants to have a reasonably priced construction project, it pays to do homework. Start with knowing what you want. It is costly to have a unclear idea of what you want. If so, pay for an architect to do the job for you ($40k to $70k). I sketched the remodelling floorplan and exterior to passed it to the engineer / structure designer to transform it into construction dwg (I paid $25k for all that work and argued back and forth with the structural designer on the number and location of additional pillars and staircase design ...). Next is to get a copy of the contract / agreement from Redas or renovation  association and add in details as much as possible to specify what you want, what finishing materials, marble tile size, types of tiles to be used, I specified clearly the number of power outlets & LAN, TV connection and locations in every room. Aircon  compressor locations, CCTV points (lay cat6 cables), decise on the route of plumbing/water supply, types of bricks used for exterior walls clearly in the agreement. I also added late delivery penalty clase of $2.5k per week as protection. In planning, itemisation for costing does not work to the advantage of the owner as lumpsum / project quotation is so much less. An example would be cost of built in cabinets. Minimise changes and additions after the quotation is final and work has started as contractor typically will charge you itemised cost for any additions and changes which work very much not to owner's advantage. An example is when I asked for a quote for swiming pool while construction was in the way, my contractor quoted me $50k, which my neighbour just added into his yard for $35k at the same time. My construction cost was $550k excluding cost for lift ($68k), recabling by SP ($6k for single phase 100A supply). It is also important to carryout daily site visit. This way, you will be the first to know when work is carried out not according to what you want and can make alteration before the rework gets too major and your contractor reluctant to make changes and threaten to delay project. Daily site visit also let you know the progress as contractors are know to move their workers to other sites on priority, so minimise that.

[C Clement 1]

Hi I am new to this group.

just did a $300k A& A to my  IT,  including Strutural,  add a toilet, some extension front & back and  total Reno and a 3 phases 60A , rewir d whole house with Cat 6A Lan, ....  I think is $$ well spend.

too many ideas to share but don't know how to share lol 

[mrbrown 0]

Need to get a builder to look at your house first before an assessment can be made. The reason is because a lot of old landed homes cannot be fully built up to its full potential gfa unless a tear down and rebuild is done.

[Adrian Lim 0]

On 30/08/2017 at 9:22 PM, sillbeers15 said:

I've completed a Reconstruction (URA asked for resubmission as Recon instead of earlier A&A as GFA expansion was too close to botherline of 50%) A&A to my 2 storey 4ksqft land Semi-D into a full 3 storey built in 4ksqft (from 3ksqft) 20mths ago. Firstly, I must say that the cost of construction varies irregardless of size and materials used. It all depends on the contractor willing to accept the quote and have the ability to complete the job according to specification. If one wants to have a reasonably priced construction project, it pays to do homework. Start with knowing what you want. It is costly to have a unclear idea of what you want. If so, pay for an architect to do the job for you ($40k to $70k). I sketched the remodelling floorplan and exterior to passed it to the engineer / structure designer to transform it into construction dwg (I paid $25k for all that work and argued back and forth with the structural designer on the number and location of additional pillars and staircase design ...). Next is to get a copy of the contract / agreement from Redas or renovation  association and add in details as much as possible to specify what you want, what finishing materials, marble tile size, types of tiles to be used, I specified clearly the number of power outlets & LAN, TV connection and locations in every room. Aircon  compressor locations, CCTV points (lay cat6 cables), decise on the route of plumbing/water supply, types of bricks used for exterior walls clearly in the agreement. I also added late delivery penalty clase of $2.5k per week as protection. In planning, itemisation for costing does not work to the advantage of the owner as lumpsum / project quotation is so much less. An example would be cost of built in cabinets. Minimise changes and additions after the quotation is final and work has started as contractor typically will charge you itemised cost for any additions and changes which work very much not to owner's advantage. An example is when I asked for a quote for swiming pool while construction was in the way, my contractor quoted me $50k, which my neighbour just added into his yard for $35k at the same time. My construction cost was $550k excluding cost for lift ($68k), recabling by SP ($6k for single phase 100A supply). It is also important to carryout daily site visit. This way, you will be the first to know when work is carried out not according to what you want and can make alteration before the rework gets too major and your contractor reluctant to make changes and threaten to delay project. Daily site visit also let you know the progress as contractors are know to move their workers to other sites on priority, so minimise that.

Hi sillbeers15,

i read with interest what you’ve done so far and was wondering if you could share the contact of your builder please? I’m about to take possession of a corner terrrace and hoping to get it one floor up. I’ve done quite a bit of planning on my own but needing to find an experienced builder. Let me know?

[snoozee 98]

4 hours ago, Adrian Lim said:

Hi sillbeers15,

i read with interest what you’ve done so far and was wondering if you could share the contact of your builder please? I’m about to take possession of a corner terrrace and hoping to get it one floor up. I’ve done quite a bit of planning on my own but needing to find an experienced builder. Let me know?

You got an old single storey and trying to add another storey?

[Adrian Lim 0]

10 hours ago, snoozee said:

You got an old single storey and trying to add another storey?

I’ve got an old 2.5 storey and trying to get it to 3.