How easy is it to change the use of a residential property to office use with regards to planning permission? Also is an ordinary house considered more valuable with planning permission for office use than residential use?
It really depends on the area and the house. Changing a terrace house in a housing estate to offices is more difficult than a cottage on a main road some what seperate from the other houses.
It isn't an ordinary house if it has planing permission to be offices. Office space can be a real pain to let and generally more difficult to rent. Unlikely to really help but it shouldn't hurt either. Planning for an extension would be worth more in most cases.
How easy it is to get planning permission depend really on the zoning of the area, (if it is zoned residential it could be a no go, if it is town centre probably acceptable) Other issues such as carparking requirements should also be considered.
The reason I ask is that I looked at an office in what was a 3 bed semi d on a main road in D 15. The rent they were looking for was €1K per month for the two larger bedrooms, given that a dentist rents most of the downstairs, the total proposed rent for the house as a whole must be somewhere between €2.5 and €3K per month. A residential 3 bed in the area could at most receive €1,300 per month. The proposed rent seems very excessive.
How easy is it to change the use of a residential property to office use with regards to planning permission? Also is an ordinary house considered more valuable with planning permission for office use than residential use?