carpet vs laminate - future resale (real estate, HOA, condo)

[calicoolguy]

I am purchasing my first place, small 2 bedroom. The place has terrible floors and will be replaced immedietly. I plan on selling in 5 years give or take. Here are my two options I am toying with and do know though have the funds to do this now it is by no means a luxory of money i work hard for my money and every cent counts.

Tile entryway, bathrooms and kitchen. Carpet rest of house (bedrooms, living room and stairs.)
Roughly $6-7000

Tile entryways, bathrooms and kitchen. Carpet the two bedroom floors, Laminate flooring on stairs that lead to living room.
Roughly $8-10000.

Which do you think will bring more bang for buck when do resell? Worth the extra few grand and couple months of top ramen?

[Cardiff Kook]

I have laminate in my condo and the stuff looks great and is indestructible. It won't get as good resale value as normal hardwoods but I think it will get better resale value than your carpet which will get dirty and stained over time. Plus it looks a ton better than carpet IMO

[earlyretirement]

I'd REALLY try to go the extra mile (and expense) and get real wood. I do agree with GMU that laminate is better than carpeting but honestly it's worth it to upgrade to hardwood flooring if you can. They are much better for resale value, look nicer, and you will sell your place quicker with them.

[tonyinsd]

Which do you perfer? That's what I'd go with.

When I was looking, I didn't really take into consideration what kind of flooring a place had. I figured if I didn't like it, I could always rip it up and put in what I wanted. That's what I did for the condo I bought in DC. I got tired of the carpet (actually, since I moved in when I was 22, I spilled too many things on it, heh he heh), so I ripped it up, and put hardwood in by myself.

The nice thing about carpet versus hardwood is that you can just run a vacuum cleaner over carpet and you're good. You've got to sweep and mop hardwood.

And if you're there over five years, the cost per year even at the high end is $3,000. That's $50 a month. It really comes down to a what do you prefer situation at that cost.

[Ruth4Truth]

Laminate is popular these days, but if you're only doing a small area (stairs, or a hallway), it doesn't cost much more to do the parquet squares (real wood). They look great and really add some cachet to a house.

[Floorist]

According to most real estate agents, laminate does not increase saleability. Why not go with engineered wood? It looks more like real hardwood, but it's only a little more expensive than laminate. Besides, laminate needs to float and you can't do that on stairs. Engineered can be glued.

[Tchud Diego]

For stairs, go with hardwood. Laminate is great, and I have it in my condo. If you want a good investment, hardwood is a better bet in this case. If you have children and pets, you will deal with spills and heavy traffic, so laminate will be the answer there. It is fade resistant to sunlight, spills, does not require lots of maintenance, and it just looks great. If you have deep pockets though, install hardwood.

[tonyinsd]

One thing to remember about laminate is that some HOAs do not allow it. It's not allowed in my place, for example.

The reason the HOA gives is that it's louder and makes more of a clicking sound. I can see how that might be a problem. My cats cannot be the stealthy, silent predators they want to be on the hardwood floor. It'd be worse with laminate.

[Tchud Diego]

Hmmm.... I didn't know that. I live alone, and I do it Japanese style and walk around with my socks on. Just sayin'....

[Floorist]

You are ignoring the fact that laminate must float. You cannot float it on stairs. If an installer offers to do that they are a hack. It WILL fail.