Demolishing vs Improving Your Home

It sounds rather dramatic to talk about demolishing what appears to be a very structurally sound home with established gardens in an established suburb. The thought of bulldozing a house in suburbia often leads people to seeing what they can do to “improve” the existing dwelling rather than demolish.

This is where the fun starts, typically over the years housing trends, like fashion trends change. There are new methods of construction, new materials, new colour schemes and the difficulty with “improving” a home versus building a new one is the blending of old materials, old colours and old technology.

Typically an average m2 price for a home improvement is $2162 per square metre versus $1102 per square metre for a new home build.*

So to put 100m2 onto an existing 3×2 older home could cost you up to $260,000 whereas with a range of basic 4 bedroom, two bathroom with home theatre design starting from $171,950 you certainly have a lot of money spare to either build a larger home, customise it with more features or simply reduce your mortgage.

There is an industry saying that typically houses depreciate and appreciate, so whilst your land is going up your house through time is aging and will need money spent on it. At some point in time the land will be worth more money on its own with a dated house on it.

This is when it’s time to “demolish and build”. Some points to note with building new vs improvement.

  1. Joining old roof tiles with new ones can be expensive and often involves the replacement of the total roof, not just the paint being improved.
  2. Joining old jarrah roof timber with modern treated pine can again often involve the whole roof needing re doing, not just the bit to be improved.
  3. Old plumbing, copper vs new PVC.
  4. Old wiring vs switching plates.
  5. Old plaster vs new plaster or old face brickwork vs new rendered brickwork.
  6. Old window frames vs new modern and stylish colours.

This is what we find influences most of our customers to make the decision to get a completely brand new home, customised to their tastes and bring a new lease of life to their street and neighbourhood.

Often when people are contemplating the cost involved they would like to remain in the home whilst it is being improved. The reality is with water and power cuts being necessary and continual trade presence on site, it’s often better to move out and rent.

With the rental market being accessible and affordable at the moment it certainly is an attractive and viable option to rent around the corner whilst your new home is being built.

Visit www.gemmill.com.au for more information.

*Figures have been sourced from Cordell MAT Report January 2015 – January 2016