Hello, dear forum community,
I have been reading along for some time and have already learned a lot, so thank you very much for that!
My husband and I have been searching for a home for ourselves and our two young children for 10 months. Currently, I am interested in a semi-detached house listed as having 4 rooms. However, these are not fully separate rooms. I have two questions about this:
1) One of the four rooms is a converted attic that is open to the stairwell (with a small gallery overlooking the staircase) — so it is not a fully enclosed room. How much would it typically cost to replace the gallery on the top floor with a drywall partition to create a fully separated room from the rest of the house?
2) According to the listing, one of the two fully enclosed rooms on the first floor can be "easily divided." In my opinion, it would only be possible to add a drywall partition through the room (which has two windows), but this would inevitably make one half a walkthrough room since it wouldn’t be possible to fit a second door. Additionally, there is only one radiator in this room. Is it feasible to install a second radiator "with minimal effort"?
Otherwise, the semi-detached house meets our requirements quite well: built in 2017, gas condensing boiler, and photovoltaic system, with no renovation backlog. The location and number of rooms represent a compromise we are willing to accept for financial reasons (yes, I know there are forum members who advise against any compromise, but after extensive searching and many disappointments, I no longer share that view. Therefore, it makes little sense to advise us to simply keep looking for five fully separate rooms in the desired area, as these cost more than 750,000 euros and such offers are very rare at our current place of residence).
Thank you in advance for your answers! Warm regards!
I have been reading along for some time and have already learned a lot, so thank you very much for that!
My husband and I have been searching for a home for ourselves and our two young children for 10 months. Currently, I am interested in a semi-detached house listed as having 4 rooms. However, these are not fully separate rooms. I have two questions about this:
1) One of the four rooms is a converted attic that is open to the stairwell (with a small gallery overlooking the staircase) — so it is not a fully enclosed room. How much would it typically cost to replace the gallery on the top floor with a drywall partition to create a fully separated room from the rest of the house?
2) According to the listing, one of the two fully enclosed rooms on the first floor can be "easily divided." In my opinion, it would only be possible to add a drywall partition through the room (which has two windows), but this would inevitably make one half a walkthrough room since it wouldn’t be possible to fit a second door. Additionally, there is only one radiator in this room. Is it feasible to install a second radiator "with minimal effort"?
Otherwise, the semi-detached house meets our requirements quite well: built in 2017, gas condensing boiler, and photovoltaic system, with no renovation backlog. The location and number of rooms represent a compromise we are willing to accept for financial reasons (yes, I know there are forum members who advise against any compromise, but after extensive searching and many disappointments, I no longer share that view. Therefore, it makes little sense to advise us to simply keep looking for five fully separate rooms in the desired area, as these cost more than 750,000 euros and such offers are very rare at our current place of residence).
Thank you in advance for your answers! Warm regards!
K
Kensington24 Sep 2021 21:46Hello K1300S,
Thank you for the hint, I will take another close look at that part of our contract!
The sellers are building a new house. For that, they need to sell their current house first, as their bank apparently required this; otherwise, they probably wouldn’t have received the (remaining) loan. That’s why I assume their bank wants to see the purchase contract in advance. Our bank also wants to see the purchase contract before releasing our loan. It seems to me that these are two similar situations?
Best regards!
Thank you for the hint, I will take another close look at that part of our contract!
The sellers are building a new house. For that, they need to sell their current house first, as their bank apparently required this; otherwise, they probably wouldn’t have received the (remaining) loan. That’s why I assume their bank wants to see the purchase contract in advance. Our bank also wants to see the purchase contract before releasing our loan. It seems to me that these are two similar situations?
Best regards!
Kensington schrieb:
Also as a report based on experience for house (re)sellers who have a similar contract model (payment first/paid first, much later handover).We sold our house in a similar way. It’s actually a common model where the notary knows exactly what to do. We were able to live there rent-free.K
Kensington4 Oct 2021 22:13Hello, dear readers!
All’s well that ends well — today we went to the notary 🙂 The house will soon be ours and is now secure. Thank you for your tips! By the way, the (very friendly) sellers mentioned that in case of construction delays, they would move into a friend’s holiday apartment, so the handover date will definitely be met. That reassured me once again. I really don’t want to imagine a forced eviction if the deadline isn’t kept, as was read out extensively from the contract today! Such scenarios are dreadful.
To link back to the title of this thread: we learned from the sellers that we could remove a wall between the two rooms on the upper floor intended as children’s bedrooms, as it’s not a load-bearing wall.
We probably won’t do this right away, but we #could# even now, despite having two children, since there are two more rooms in the attic (planned as a guest room and an office) as well as a finished room in the basement. And I recently spent quite some time thinking about #room division# 🙂
For now, I’m just enjoying the feeling of finally not having to look anymore!
Best regards!
All’s well that ends well — today we went to the notary 🙂 The house will soon be ours and is now secure. Thank you for your tips! By the way, the (very friendly) sellers mentioned that in case of construction delays, they would move into a friend’s holiday apartment, so the handover date will definitely be met. That reassured me once again. I really don’t want to imagine a forced eviction if the deadline isn’t kept, as was read out extensively from the contract today! Such scenarios are dreadful.
To link back to the title of this thread: we learned from the sellers that we could remove a wall between the two rooms on the upper floor intended as children’s bedrooms, as it’s not a load-bearing wall.
We probably won’t do this right away, but we #could# even now, despite having two children, since there are two more rooms in the attic (planned as a guest room and an office) as well as a finished room in the basement. And I recently spent quite some time thinking about #room division# 🙂
For now, I’m just enjoying the feeling of finally not having to look anymore!
Best regards!
K
Kensington5 Oct 2021 09:39...we learned “en passant,” it should have said. Autocorrect.