It seems way way way too low. Double that, at a minimum. You aren’t talking about keeping anything with saving here. A teardown would be cheaper if allowed. You’d end up with a much better result as well. Remodeling costs more than double what new construction does.

Probably right. thanks.........have a lot thinking to do.

Way low. Especially for a HCOL area.

thank for input

it was built in'52

Will the bank and the county let you do a teardown? Is it protected in any way?

yeah.....if i wanted to that.....that wouldn't be a problem........for "Code" purposes i would have to leave (1) existing wall so as not to change tax situation......my taxes would skyrocket if i went completely new.

Get an architect and start planning which wall to leave.

yeah.....i have a few coming....i;ll hear what they have to say.

i wanted to get a few opinions from you guys too.

it's looking like it might be closer to 350,000.

that would be over my budget and not worth renovating.

thank you,

Well over 350K. But so will be teardown. Double as a start. . But you will get a more valuable end result. Which only matters at resale time, because the expense still has to be paid for in the mean time.

You live in one of the most expensive locations to renovate in the US. You might want to just live there, build equity, and play the property ladder game by moving up in a few years.

Rethink the addition. Plan changes to make the existing space work better.

In my area, ct metro north accessible town, bids of $500 per square feet are low, my addition came to 650 per sqft add another 50 to 150k( we put a gunite pool ) for hardscape and driveways and hvac and gas boiler system was 40k.

get a contractor to give you a bid. Architects in my area always under estimate true work costs. My neighbor's architect quoted $250 per sq ft when they met with contractors the lowest bid was 550 per sq foot. Because of their experience I worked backwards. I got contractor bids to make sure we could afford what we wanted than hired an architect for drawings.

..any chance your lot allows for the first story addition? or out of question?

your year of build implies there will be most likely asbestos..the house is small though..so maybe 10 k for demo and proper disposal..you can also decide to leave in the areas you won't touch when remodelng. but from your description I'm not sure you'll have such areas

(obviously check whether has asbestos or not,)

you might want to post existing plans..some very talented people here might be helpful in suggesting better, more economical road..maybe less square footage gained yet still well functioning house

you can decide to save on some things. Like not converting the fireplace.

will still be very expensive

Could you afford to build an all new house if that was a lot instead of an existing house? How would you finance a new build? The answers to those questions will guide you to whether a teardown is s workable idea.

But, in general, going out is a lot cheaper than trying to go up. Nothing is truly cheap in your area though.

I'm in Essex Ct, NJ. So likely not a big difference in construction costs, etc. Last year we completed a gut reno of our existing 1400 sq feet and added another 1600sq ft (out and up) + 600 foot basement under the addition. Not including any landscaping/hardscaping but including architect fees, permits + everything else it was around $375k. From what I understand costs have gone up since then so maybe $400k+ now.

An important consideration that I didn't see you bring up is what the house would be worth after the addition/renovation. That's an important consideration, and what drove our decision to go ahead with the project.

As for "it's cheaper to tear down & rebuild" - well, that's not necessarily true. In our town there are huge fees for doing new builds, and a different set of requirements which also add to costs significantly. Plus no matter what you are constrained in size by zoning laws, setbacks, etc. So the resulting home is no bigger. Sure, it is going to have a better layout, and maybe that offsets the big increase in costs, but likely not.

Stephen B

We did exactly that over 20 years. The only reason we did that was because of the view. We live in a high COL area. If I had to do it again, I would not have started the first remodel. I would have looked really hard for another property.

The problem with any renovation is that you inherit all the quirks of hold house. When people talk about gut reno, there are various degrees of that. We kept the old stairways, which limits the floor plan. We also kept the footprint of the house and did not expand out. This also limited many of our options. If we tore down and expanded foot print, we would not have had to accept some less than ideal things about the house.