Talking Property

More people are extending but should they be trading up, asks ISABEL MORTON

SOME PEOPLE spot trees in blossom or flowers in bloom as a sign that spring has truly arrived.

I spot skips. Beautiful, big, spacious daffodil yellow skips.

I love them equally, whether they have just been delivered empty (but full of potential) or packed to the seams, netted and ready to be taken away.

There was a severe lack of them over the winter, with the possible exception of the “old Foxrock” area of Dublin 18, where I counted six skips tucked discreetly away in the large leafy (even in January) private gardens.

Skips are a sure sign that properties are being cleared out, renovated and possibly even extended.

They signify small signs of life within the building industry.

Not as ostentatious and obvious as cranes, (which immediately spell out “major construction”), they do at least tell you that something is happening, however small and insignificant.

Over the last four or five weeks I have noticed that the extensionistas are out to play again.

Recently I have had a number of calls from people planning on enlarging their homes.

Now, there is nothing new about that. People have been doing it since the 1960s and 1970s when it first became fashionable to extend.

In those days, extensions invariably ended up looking like an unfortunate growth on a (once attractive) face.

They were rarely designed with anything in mind, let alone an architectural link with the existing structure. They sat uncomfortably to the rear or the side of original homes, never quite fitting in with the property to which they were attached.

It was a time when the middle classes added a family room, which enabled them to keep the original “good rooms” for state occasions, and allowed their children to run riot in a separate area. Up until then, children were just not permitted to run riot anywhere indoors.

It wasn’t until the 1980s that the notion of extending homes became the norm, mainly because people just couldn’t afford to move house.

Property prices hardly budged throughout the entire decade, interest rates were sky high and we were in the middle of a recession.

And, we all know what happened from the mid 1990s onwards, when children suddenly had to have their own individual bedrooms, and in many cases, en suite bathrooms, and gargantuan glass box kitchen extensions became de rigueur.

Then, of course, it all ground to a halt.

People were not giving their homes so much as a lick of paint, let alone a major makeover. And, as we all know, they certainly weren’t moving house.

But, over the last six or eight weeks I have noticed an increase in skip sightings and in the event that I was hallucinating, I decided to check out my suspicions.

All of the Skip Hire firms I contacted agreed that business had been very quiet in January and February, and that they had all reduced their prices.

Some companies, like AA Waste, had cut their staff back to a three-day week, but since March have returned to a five-day week, as business has picked up considerably.

Pacon Skip Hire in Balbriggan said that, having had to reduce the number of staff manning their waste sorting department in January and February, they had been “snowed under” since March and that business was now “busier than ever”.

The staff of AM Skip Hire, which deals with both the north and south side of Dublin city, had been finishing work a few hours early every day during the first two months of the year but, since March, they were now back up to a six-day week and also having to work overtime again.

So, I wasn’t imagining my skip sightings and I am delighted to announce that the world has resumed turning, even if it is moving at a slower and more docile pace than it once did.

The only problem now is that some people, who may be a lot better off moving house, are instead adding an extension. The end result is often unsatisfactory, as they usually add a large kitchen/living area, whose vast proportions dwarf all the original rooms of the house.

They end up living in Versailles-sized extensions, attached to their modest homes. It rarely works.

With interest rates now down to 1 per cent (the lowest level since the euro was first introduced in 1999) and property prices down by anything up to 50 per cent, trading up has never been more affordable.

It may, therefore, be well worth doing the maths very carefully, before ordering your big yellow skip.