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The thought has crossed my mind. I have my eye on Chapel Hill. We have 3 children. There is quite a jump in price range going from a 3 to 4 bedroom. So that makes it tough! I have thought about buying a 3 bedroom and adding on to it (for $50,000-$75,000ish -- hopefully it wouldn't be $100,000). Hopefully the equity would be there to do that since Chapel Hill is so desirable. I'm also looking at Hillsborough and Clayton. There would be no problem getting a newer 4 bedroom in Clayton compared to Chapel Hill. But I prefer CH because it's not as rural.
Here would be an example:
MLS ID# 907026
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v254/kjev71/house_add_on.jpg (broken link)
It's a little bit hard to see because of the trees (but at least it's not a naked lot ).
But because the roofline is not straight across I think an addition would be fairly seamless (and not look like it was added on).
I too have considered this. I haven't checked into cost numbers. I'm like you, I can change a house, but it's hard to change the lot and location.
I'm interested in what you find out. I also wonder if you put 75K in an addition if you will automatically get that back in home value. I worry that if the house is at the top of the price range in an area that I wouldn't get out another 75K. Then again I guess it depends if we're talking long run or short run.
We plan to build an addition to a house in Chapel Hill. I would definitely check with the town planning departement to get the set back requirements, etc. Extending the gable end of a house is about the easiest type of addition.
Know too that it is usually less expensive to build up (adding a second floor) than it is to build out. Also realize the more wooded the lot the more expensive. Removing full sized trees like that gets very pricy and can easily tack on $7-10K just for tree removal.
Not to mention you can expect your taxes to go up along with the overall house value related to the addition. Though in NC that's probably the least of your worries due to the low tax rate.
We didn't end up doing that, but we did consider it. We had an architect go out to the house with us and give us a ballpark estimate of cost for what we wanted. You can do that while the house is on the market. The owners would have to agree, but they are trying to sell, so they almost certainly will agree. A good architect will provide the estimate for free (obviously not a really detailed blueprint or anything, but a ballpark figure).
In Chapel Hill, in an older neighborhood like where this house seems to be, additions/improvements are going to pay for themselves, although it may not be immediate.
What neighborhood is that? Looks like you'd have a lot of options.
I'm sure things vary town to town as far as buliding permits, etc. Good point about the tree removal. My neighbors are having trees removed and they are paying $10,000. I should have mentioned in my original post that I'm not interested in that particular house or neighborhood -- just the style of it as far as adding an addition on. So I probably would not pick a lot with that many trees so close to the house. When I did a search on realtor.com for 3 bedrooms the other type of houses did not seem well suited for a seamless addition. Ranches and extended capes can have natural looking additions.
MaimounaKande -- excellent advice about having an architect look at the house before putting an offer in!
My husband's parents had an addition put on to their ranch 15 years ago. So he is familiar with the process. And we had a garage built at our last house for $30,000. It was a neat process planning the layout of it with the contractor. It can be stressful. But it went very smoothly for us.
I thought my question might be unusual since so many people are buying new. And there is something very appealing about that. Especially coming from New England where housing is expensive and generally very old. Everywhere we have live in MA our properties have needed work -- building a new garage, deleading, encapsulating asbestos pipes. The list goes on and on! So I am torn between an established neighborhood and newer construction.
We're currently planning an addition, though we're not very far into it. Our septic systems (I'm not in NC) are based on # of bedrooms, not bathrooms (??). I don't know if you have septic or sewer.
Also, we'll have to upgrade our heating system for the additional sq. footage, and probably our hot water heater. Fun stuff. And yes, tree removal and grading can tear into a budget. Blast the rain!
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). 
There goes more money for that project $$$
