If you have the space needed to complete a loft conversion, it can be one of the best home upgrades that you can invest in. When done successfully, adding a loft will increase the resale value of your home, and it can offer a highly functional living space for you and your family.
With that being said, there are upsides and downsides to this type of home upgrade. The goal of this article is to explore these advantages and disadvantages in greater depth.
Advantages of Adding A Loft
1. Lofts can increase the value of your home
Source: in.hotels.com
According to onthemarket.com, a well-executed loft can increase the value of your home by as much as 25%, with 21% being the average in most cases. Importantly, for a loft to substantially increase the value of your home, it must contain a sleeping space.
In addition, research conducted by New Silver suggests ‘an extra bedroom can add between $30,000 to $50,000 to the potential resale value of a house, depending on the location and the existing property value.’
If the loft conversion doesn’t allow enough space for a bed, it might not be worth the hassle. However, if you can comfortably add a bed, the data suggests that your home will become significantly more valuable as a result.
2. You can turn your loft into a home office
This is important, because a home office is one of the most desirable elements of a modern home.
Prior to 2024, home offices were more of a luxury than a necessity, but that was before covid-19 rewrote the rules for working at home. One of the unexpected benefits of the coronavirus pandemic is that it has become increasingly common for employees to work remotely.
By turning your loft into an office, you are essentially future proofing your home for your family, and other families if you end up renting it out one day.
3. You Can Unlock Beautiful Views
Source: mymove.com
The most unfortunate aspect of using your attic for storage space is that you may be missing out on the best view that your house has to offer.
For many houses, adding a loft can open up attractive views that simply aren’t feasible anywhere else in the house. This is especially true if you live in a nice neighborhood, and you have the space available to add a balcony to your loft.
4. You Can Upsize the Livable Space of Your Home
As families grow over time, it is very common for the family home to become too small to handle the space needed for babies and children.
For many people, this means finding a new home that is more appropriately sized. However, as experienced architect Kenneth Beirne points out, loft conversions offer a ‘quick and easy way to transform your home, making the addition of extra living space a straightforward task’
In other words, instead of moving out, you can simply move upwards, adding valuable living space that will increase the value of your home and make it viable to live in it for a longer period of time.
Disadvantages of Adding a Loft
1. You can lose a large amount of storage space
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This is probably the biggest downside of a loft conversion.
For many homeowners, the attic acts as a valuable storage area which helps keep the rest of the house uncluttered. If you follow through with a loft conversion, you will more than likely lost most of the available storage space, especially if you add a bedroom and bathroom to the loft.
If this applies to your home, one potential workaround is to maximize the storage space in other areas of your home. There are plenty of garage storage ideas that can potentially be implemented, and there may be other nooks and crannies that you can convert into storage space relatively quickly.
2. It could be an expensive upgrade
Even though lofts can be one of the more affordable ways to add space to a home, that doesn’t necessarily mean that this particular upgrade is cheap. You can expect to pay anywhere from $10,000 and upwards, which is a sizable amount of money for most homeowners.
Despite the costs required to complete a loft conversion, most property investors will see a positive return from this particular renovation, which nullifies most of the risks involved. The main issue is simply whether or not you have the cash available to complete the renovation work.
3. Stairs Can Make or Break a Loft Conversion
Source: resi.co.uk
It is important to point out that the entrance to your loft can have a huge impact on the potential resale value of your home. Put simply, if your loft doesn’t have stairs, you can’t really describe the room inside the loft as ‘an additional bedroom’ when listing your house on popular websites like Zillow.
This is problematic, mainly because many houses don’t necessarily have the floor space needed to build stairs up to the loft. If you don’t have space to build stairs, a sliding ladder is an option, but this will dramatically reduce the impact on resale value.
To put it bluntly, if you don’t have the space needed to build stairs to your loft, it might not make sense to commit to this particular home upgrade.
Final Thoughts
In the end, it should be pretty clear that adding a loft can instantly increase the value of your home, provided you have the space needed to add a bed and stairs leading up to the loft. If your house offers these conditions, you should definitely consider moving ahead with the renovation. Conversely, if you can’t fit in a bed and you need a ladder to access the loft, it might be better to focus on upgrades that are more congruent with the layout of your home.
