The Sunday Business Post, Sunday, April 02, 2006 – By Laura Noonan
Come May, and the year that follows, a million of us will find ourselves with a lot of spare cash, probably more than we have ever had before, thanks to the maturing of our Special Savings Incentive Accounts (SSIAs).
The coming of age of the SSIAs will mean that about a quarter of the population of the country will receive lump sums of about €2,000 to about €25,000, depending on how much they invested and how their investments performed.
That money will be used for many purposes, including holidays to far-flung destinations, property investments, new cars and mega shopping sprees. On the other hand, financial institutions are trying to woo savers into reinvesting at least a portion of their windfall.
Certainly, SSIA holders won’t have a shortage of options for their newly acquired cash.
But, despite being offered the exotic, the extravagant and the exciting, surveys show that many SSIA holders are planning to stick to the familiar, and will invest at least a portion of their money in improving their homes.
The options for different types of home improvements are vast.
If you’re planning to spend a few thousand euro on your home, what’s the best way to do it? What will make your house seem bigger: an extension, or changing the layout of the existing space? Should you opt for a conservatory, a sunroom, or an awning?
And which changes will increase the value of your property?
For the confused owner floundering in an abyss of choices, the architect consultant service of Eva Byrne is one of several options that can be considered.
For a fee of €300 plus Vat, Byrne will come to your home for two hours and talk you through various changes you can make.
Byrne’s first step is to talk to you about your lifestyle and what you want to get from your home. She’ll then walk through the property, room by room, and make suggestions for things you could change, and how to improve storage.
The major changes people consider tend to be opening up living spaces, adding extensions, converting attics and renovating bathrooms.
Byrne often advises people to consider knocking walls between smaller rooms to create larger living spaces.
‘‘Families want a large living area that has a kitchen, dining, family room, and then a separate sitting room for the adults,’’ said Byrne.
‘‘I always recommend sliding doors.
“For that you need to add another layer of partition wall and the doors can slide in between, and they’re not going to interfere with the furniture.”
Byrne said she did not generally recommend glass doors: ‘‘If you are going to make doors why not make them solid, so that when they’re open you can see, and when they’re closed, they’re closed.”
Ruth Maguire, branch manager at Sherry FitzGerald in Bray, Co Wicklow, said opening up rooms could add considerable value to your home when you decide to sell it.
‘‘If you’re in a development of three-bed semis that have a separate kitchen and dining room, certainly the cheapest way to add to a house’s value is to open that up,’’ she said.
‘‘If the going rate is €500,000, you could probably add €5,000 or €10,000 to that.”
Extensions are the most obvious way to increase a property’s area, and remain popular.
‘‘Extensions are hugely popular,” said Byrne.
‘‘People are looking at every little bit of space they have.
‘‘I’ve even had people with a side passage, wondering if they could build into it so they could move the stairs over.”
The cost of extensions can vary drastically, depending on the type of finish you opt for, with a typical extensions costing between €2,250 to €3,000 per square metre.
Attic conversions are an option favoured by many people who want to get the most out of their homes.
But Maguire is cautious about their resale benefits.
Attic conversions have to comply to strict guidelines if they are to be legally termed additional rooms, so the vast majority of Ireland’s attic conversions can only be termed legally as attic storage.
This can pose a problem when the owner goes to sell their property, because they are not able to advertise their attic conversion as an extra room.
‘‘If I’ve just put €25,000 into my attic and I’m going to be looking for €525,000 when all of my neighbours are looking for €500,000, but yet I can’t market it as an extra bedroom, that’s going to make things slower,’’ said Maguire.
Bathrooms are another firm favourite as home improvements.
‘‘I would like double-ended baths, so you can sit either end,” said Byrne. ‘‘It’s very good if you have children, and great for anybody who wants to share a bath.”
‘‘If it’s possible at all, have a separate shower. And I love wall-mounted toilets and wash basin, because you don’t have this horrible junction at the floor.”
Maguire said bathrooms could definitely improve the saleability of a property and add between €3,000 and €5,000 to the price.
‘‘People are time poor; it’s a big advantage if they realise they don’t have to get stuck into bathrooms immediately,” she said.
While the changes mentioned here are the more obvious home improvements, both Byrne and Maguire said other more subtle changes would be worthwhile.
Byrne said halls are often a key area for her clients and tend to take up as much as 20 minutes of a two-hour consultation.
In halls, small and reasonably inexpensive decorative changes can make a big difference.
‘‘People are thinking of hard floors in the hall, either timber or tiles,” she said. ‘‘Recessed lighting is popular. And a nice wool rug can work well. A mirror beside the door will bring light. You’d often like something for the keys when you come in, maybe a little table, or if you’re short of space it could be wall mounted.”
Stairs are another area people tend to focus on. Byrne said she often advises owners to keep the handrails as timber, and paint the rest. Replacing hand rails with hardwood rails, is also an option and costs about €1,500. For the stairs themselves, Byrne recommends replacing the carpet with a runner.
The area under the stairs can solve some of the storage needs of modern families. For about €2,000 you can remove the existing panelling under your stairs and provide two additional storage areas.
Updating door fixtures is a change that both Byrne and Maguire advise. Putting new handles on doors can cost as little as €100 per door, while adding entirely new doors costs about €500 per door.
‘‘If you have solid hollow doors and you replace them with nice solid doors, that will add up to €3,000 anyway,” said Maguire.
Outside, awnings are another option favoured by Byrne.
‘‘They’re brilliant, she said.
‘‘I went to see a woman in Kildare who was living in a modern new townhouse. She had a kitchen dining area in the front, and a living area in the back. She said she wanted a sunroom but she didn’t know whether to build a conservatory or how to extend. ‘‘I recommended she bought an awning. And I got a call from her in June, saying: ‘Eva, I just bought an awning. It’s just brilliant. I’m here in my new room outside.’
‘‘This was magic; you go down to somebody who’s expecting to spend €50,000 and they end up spending €3,000.”
But Maguire said that awnings would not add much to the resale value of a property.
Elaborate outdoor sheds also won’t hold their value.
‘‘The outdoor garden rooms are the bane of our lives,” she said. ‘‘Outdoor garden rooms and these big fancy sheds cost a fortune and they really only add value if you’re selling to somebody who particularly wants them.”
Eva Byrne can be contacted at 087-2940805
