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If you listen to HGTV and TBS, you'll believe that you can get a 150% return on the cost of your home renovations. You may also think you can do a complete bedroom upgrade including custom carpentry completed by a team of builders for $1000. Realtors, of course, are happy to let you think this as well since it makes their job of selling easier and doesn't cost them a dime.
I find most magazine articles on the topic to be a load of *******s as well.
So what % of your improvements do you really get back--especially if you pay someone to do the work and don't do it yourself? The housing market is such a subjective moving target that it may just be impossible to gauge.
I would be willing to bet its 50% or less and many cases.
Depends on where you are starting and where you end up and what the rest of the neighborhood is like. The rest of the neighborhood (and the other comparable houses buyers will be looking at) set the stage for what buyer expectation is. In general, you can sell anything IF the price is right.
Certain things - like adding a second bath or powder room if the house only has one bathroom - pay for themselves better than others. Generally kitchen upgrades and bath remodels return the highest percentages.
Impossible to really answer as there are way too many variables. Let's just start with the basics. What is the competition in the neighborhood? For example, if you have a neighborhood that is mostly original and your home has updates it logically would be worth more right? Well, maybe not. If the reno is done with a certain style, that is not something the buyer is looking for, they probably would rather go for cheaper home and do the reno of their dreams and that will impact your sale price.
If your reno is to done up to the max and the competition doesn't come near that, then you need a very specific buyer for your home. When DH and I bout we were thrilled that the owners had not put in casement windows as many had. To us they just didn't fit the style of the home and we wanted to replace them ourselves with the original window style. The cost would have increased the sale price as we had a lot of windows and the windows were really bad.
I
So what % of your improvements do you really get back-
-especially if you pay someone to do the work and don't do it yourself?
For budget purposes? ZERO.
Quote:
I would be willing to bet its 50% or less and many cases.
If you're lucky
Changes that ADD usable living space (like a walk out basement MIL apt)...
are about the only work that will ADD any value.
At the practical level MOST of the work is about repair/remodel of existing
and implies that most of the value is in maintaining what COMP value you already have
or have used up if you are there very long. It's replenishing value.
The next level up is sale appeal.
Most buyers don't like question marks so most will choose a well done recent remodel
sooner than a) a poorly done job or b) a home that shows it needs work.
My personal experience (3 homes sold since 2009), I'm batting a net-zero average. No loss, no gains... some work hired out, some work DIY. These were all on entry level homes, mostly functional improvements (windows, roof, physical repair to structure) with some cosmetics (kitchen and baths ~ hard to do much to "improve" a bedroom, it's an empty box).
The pricing and "ease" of the home improvement shows is ridiculously off base, but ANYONE who has a couple functional brain cells ought to be able to see that.
I think redecorating intelligently will give you a payback. I think remodeling will possibly make the house sell faster and for a better price, but I don't think it will necessarily be a good investment.
Realtors like to have pristine, updated homes to sell, because it makes their job easier. Ditto for the advice about no more than 3 kinds of floor coverings in a home. Or, in past years, no wallpaper.
Honestly, I think that your house needs one or two special features to sell. I think making the most of the features is the best strategy. But as a home buyer in 2012, I can also say that the most depressing thing I can think of is to look at a 20 year old home with the same kitchen it had the year it was built. Same with the bath.
We always knew we were going to move from our last house, so we remodeled our awful kitchen well in advance of our move. We got to enjoy our kitchen for 12 years before we finally sold our home. One of the positive factors for the buyers was the kitchen.
When I sold my house last summer, I did some basic house maintenance stuff which I don't put into the home improvement category. I also tiled the bathroom floors - they were carpeted and despite trying to get them tiled at several different point while we lived there, it just never worked out. But I wanted to make sure it was done before I listed.
I don't think the tile floor increased the value per se. But I do think that having those floors be commensurate with the rest of the house (everything else was in excellent condition) meant that my house sold pretty quickly and close to asking, despite my being somewhat aggressive with asking price and telling my agent I wanted to list for about 4% more than she suggested. I ended up getting about 2% more than what she would have put as the listing price, and I'm sure a buyer would have wanted to negotiate down from that. However, I think if I hadn't put in the $1200 on the tile floors, I wouldn't have gotten my asking price and I also think that I would not have sold as quickly. I was in a good sellers market but my house had a couple of large negatives that couldn't be changed and having it be turnkey helped to counter those.
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