Guide
The question every family with a full house asks. The answer depends on numbers only you have: the written number for the new floor, the price per square foot on your street, what selling and moving would take, and what a new loan would carry. This page sets them side by side and the worksheet does the arithmetic. It publishes no figure of its own.
I am Sebastian Moreno Rivera, the owner of Build And Decor Construction. I build second stories, so read the page knowing that, and check every line against your own numbers.
Building up buys rooms at your address: bedrooms, a second bath, an office with a door, a primary suite with a view. It keeps the block, the school, the commute and the neighbors, and it puts your family through a build. Buying bigger buys a different house with the rooms already in it. It costs the move, a sale, a new loan at today's rate, and the block.
The written number per added square foot, from a scope on your house after the structural look. Your architect's and engineer's fees. Plan check and permit fees. Rent, if you move out for the loud weeks, or the phasing if you stay. The worksheet takes the first line; the others belong in the scope you compare it against.
The extra square feet at your street's price per square foot. Selling costs on the house you have: commission, transfer taxes, the prep that gets a house photographed. Moving: the movers, the deposits, the furniture a bigger house asks for. The rate reset: if your current loan carries a lower rate than a new one would, the difference on your balance over the years you plan to stay is a real line, and if the new rate is lower, it is a saving.
Then the lines with no number: the school the kids can walk to, the commute that works, the neighbors who know your name. The worksheet leaves those to you. It only makes sure the money is counted the same way on both sides.
Your real estate agent gives you closed sales per square foot on comparable streets and a realistic selling-cost percentage. Your lender gives you the rate a new loan would carry. Your statement gives you the balance and the rate you have. The written number per added square foot comes from a licensed builder after the structural look; mine comes after the structural look and the plan review, on a defined scope. The worksheet takes your own numbers and nothing else.
The comparison is arithmetic, not advice. A close result means the lines with no number decide. A wide result usually points one way. When building up runs high, the structure under the new floor is the usual reason, and the evaluation shows what it needs before you commit to anything. When buying bigger runs high, the selling costs and the rate reset are usually why, and your real estate agent's figures are the ones to check.
The full picture of the build, from the structural look to the day the roof comes off, is on the second-story additions page. What moves the build number has its own page.
Your numbers, lined up. The page holds no figures of its own: the build number comes from a written scope, the street number from your real estate agent, the rest from your statements. Nothing you type is stored or sent.
Fill the four core figures (the square feet you would add, the written number per added square foot, your house today and your street's price per square foot) and the two paths line up here.
The written number per square foot comes from a scope on your house, after the structural look. Start with the feasibility read or the first on-site visit, and the worksheet fills in from there.
Send me your address and two or three photos of the house. I send back a feasibility read in writing: what the zoning allows above your roof, what the lot adds, what a house of its age and type usually needs to carry a new floor, and a simple massing sketch of the new floor on your house. I read every request myself.