Extensions and tendering.

With many home owners not able to sell their homes or sell for what they hoped to get, some have resorted to extending rather than trading up. Depending on the works involved it may not be necessary to apply for planning permission, however I have found that generally the planning authorities make decisions well within the statutory period where planning permission was required and there are no issues .... something which would not have happened 12-15 months ago. Maybe its just that I've covered everything in the planning application submission and that they had no cause to request any further information.

Within the last few days I've sent one extension out to tender. It had been a while since I prepared tender documentation for an extension to be honest, but I now have a run of them to do. Extensions by their nature can be difficult to predict budget prices for so it will be interesting to see how much the tenders will come back for. I am expecting some variation in the prices.

The Society of Chartered Surveyors estimate that tender prices generally are back to 1999 levels, which would bring building costs well back from what they were 15 months ago, yet material prices and specifications have risen beyond the 1999 levels as have prelims., which makes one wonder.