What home-improvement project packs the most bang for the buck?
- Kitchen remodel
- Bath remodel
- Painting
- Landscaping, decks, and patios
- A home theater
- Other
You will not be able to change your vote.
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Real Estate Mags have for a long time promoted kitchen remodels as sometimes having a better than $1.00/$ return. But more objective publications seem to question that assumption.
Unless the buyer just loves all the previous HOs choices, they are going to look at it with an eye towards remodeling the kitchen themselves. Just as if it had never been remodeled.
So remodel things if YOU want it a different way and will stay there a while. Don't do it to raise the resale price. Usually it will be pennies on the dollar.
I answered "other" for additions. If the house is smaller than the neighbors, then adding a bedroom or bed/bath to bring it up to the surrounding homes might make $1.10 to $1.60/$ spent.
It said "biggest bang for the buck", not "biggest bang" - if we can believe our local real estate thugs, a coat of paint gets 4-5 times its cost back while fresh carpet (clean if really new, replace if not) gets you 2x. Local theory has it that a make-over by a pro decorator (paint, carpet, drapes, tile if needed, maybe rent some furniture for showing) always pays for itself..
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
A good make-over I could imagine paying back. And first impressions stuff - front yard, porch, etc. Worth hiring a yard guy for a few weeks prior and touching things up.
And is there anything so worth doing that the real estate agent will spend her own money to do it? I guess the ad and the flyers are the only things with that much effect.David Thomas Overlooking Cook Inlet in Kenai, Alaska
We're in escrow selling our investment house and buying another. Having been through the looking at houses thing recently, I'd rather not have the seller paint and re-decorate to sell. We're smart enough to know that they're selling the house, not the furniture. I don't want a quick paint job, that extra layer is a negative to me. But HGTV is there to teach people how to dump a couple grand into setting the place up for viewing. I'd rather negotiate with a seller who isn't looking to recoup that cash.
-- J.S.
hi JS..... I have viewed a couple of those "SELL THIS HOUSE" and it seems to me that most of the homes basically just need a good cleaning. Its amazing the condition some people will try to sell their house (ie junk and garbage piled everywhere), they probably clean their trade in better when getting a new car. How smart is someone that needs an "expert" to come in and tell them that they need to clean or are they just lazy?
Dan
J S
I read your post and had to agree, I dont need anybody to polish there house in order for me to know wheather or not I like it.
Dave Thomas also made some good points about the kitchen, I'm in the process of looking for a house here in TX, when someone remodels a kitchen here they put in oak cabinets, I hate oak, so now they are expecting to get there money back on the cabinets and I dont want to pay for some thing that I'm probably going to tear out.
I would rather they just leave the house alone, clean up is all I need.
Doug
So...doug.... Have you become an honest to goodness Texan already and you want all your trim and cabinets painted white? or are you just saying you would prefer a wood with a bit more character than, and not quite as ubiquitous as oak?
By the way, Tonight is the first time I've been online since I returned from Austin. Sorry we missed one another, I stayed at the Continental club most of the day. Saw some great music there.
Anyway, There's been a whirlwind of big changes in my world since I returned. Been running nonstop for weeks. I'll e-mail you with the story.
I await the story, got one for you as well
Doug
Ruth
Katrina has been selling RE for about twenty years full time and her claim from being with customers first hand is that Kitchens add the most.
Believe it or not fireplaces add a tremendous amt as do closets.
Pools add nothing and in some cases take away unless youre in Florida.
Master bedroom "suites" add tremendously as well.
You left all those off the list
My life is my passion!
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I presume you must know that NAHB does an annual thing on this based on surveying realtors and builder across the nation. It does diffeer in the different locations. I voted bathrooms, but any of these can depend oin the current conditions before the remo,
More manoey is pent on remodeling in the two years after a new owner takes possesion that any ohter time in the life of a home.
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yeh and I love Lisa L's tag
" A finished home is a listed home"My life is my passion!
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Ruth,
I picked "other" not because I don't believe any of those could pack a lot of "bang for the buck" but realistically, it's all house specific.
Plenty of new homes out here that are nice on the inside, but completely devoid of landscaping. In that situation, focus on that.
On the other hand, a 30 plus year old house probably has mature trees and shrubs, but could probably benefit from some kind of a kitchen makeover, or at least axing the aqua blue harvest yellow or olive green fixtures for neutral colored ones in the bathroom. The cost for that one less than $200 for a 1/2 bath DIY.
Jon
Ruth, I'm going to have to say, "Other." Give it a good cleaning, de-clutter, and leave it alone. If you are into home improvement, you'll want something that sells low that you can improve and get your money back for. So, don't touch the kitchen, don't touch the bath. The most frustrating thing to me, as a homeowner (I'm not in the business) is redoing the "muddles" that other owners have wrought. We walked right out of many houses during showings where owners had obviously "just fixed it up" to show it by doing new kitchens and baths. I HATED their choices. 9 times out of 10, they ripped out things that I would have liked to restore. It was horrible. And then they wanted to make money back on "their investment"? Whatever. Dude....you can take the Home Depot sink with you when you go, then.
Even in THIS house, with the holes in the walls (great for checking out the real story of the pipes and electricity, btw), the small "improvements" she made were really awful. The paint she used was cheap. She painted some trim that was originally stained (?!) which is a BAD idea. Please don't ever advise people to do that. She put VERY cheap, new fixtures in the bath which looked awful. Same with kitchen. It hurt her price in the end.
It would have been better for her to have:
1) decluttered and REALLY cleaned the house.
2) taken the raccoons out of the attic. That really hurt her price at closing. She had to swallow not ONLY the price of the raccoon removal, but the removal of the insulation, reinstallation and spraying down the attic as well. How she thought we were NOT going to see the raccoon family up there during the day, I do not know.
3) spent a little more money on a proper tuckpointing versus the terrible one that has to be redone
4) cleaned up the yard, exterior screens and windows
5) made sure all of the windows opened
Things like that. Things that you EXPECT will work, but they don't. Because they will be uncovered in an inspection by a savvy homeowner who will negotiate the cost of those repairs down from a market price. And will aggressively do so since they are absorbing the risk as well.
I think you hit it on the head, value increase has a lot to do with how far apart the remodel and the start conditions are. When we moved into our house the kitchen was trashed- partical board cabs literally falling off the wall, wires/switches that did nothing went nowhere, plaster failling/failed, ect and now the new kitchen is "high end" (at least for this neighborhood/town). I'm sure I'll get the dollars spent (and then some I hope) out of it (mostly because I did much of the work myself and I don't pay (myself) very well. I hope the same happens with the new (added) bathroom in the basement.
I voted paint for giving the most 'bang for the buck'. Why? In order to paint one must first clean. Additionally, while painting one often comes across those little details that having lived in the house for years your eye now ignores. Remodelling, in my view, is more for the people living there than the ones who come after. I never expect to realize my investment in a sunroom in real dollars. But I am sure enjoying living with it. Painting my plywood cabinets would give me far more bang for the buck than replacing them with the cherry that I'd like - the next guy would probably want oak. I've lost count of the times on HGTV where I've watched a perfectly servicable, fairly new kitchen get torn out and replaced with a new one that didn't seem that much nicer to my eye.
While it is true that a new kitchen really is impressive, it is also one of the most expensive projects. If when we discuss "bang for the buck" we are talking about the percentage of cost recovered when selling the home, I saw in this month's issue of Family Handyman (I know, I know...insert giggles here) that they had a few statistics that are worthy of note. The following are projects with their percentage of cost recovered for 2003, national average:
Deck addition - 104
Siding replacement - 98
Bathroom addition - 95
Attic Bedroom - 93
Bathroom remodel - 91
Window replacement - 86
Family room addition - 81
Kitchen remodel - 80
Basement remodel - 79
Master suite - 77
I have no idea where their data is from , but it is an interesting anyway.
Steve
i have been in business for a long time and over the years i've adopted a uniform pricing stucture. it simply doesn't matter what i do the pricing is always the same. our people enjoy the variety of work and my customers know that the price is right.
i know a lot of contractors hit customers pretty hard on price for certain jobs but most of them are one shotters that customer will never call them again and when times get tough i will always have work.
I'm surprised that no one has said anything about the importance of the main entrance.
"sobriety is the root cause of dementia.", rez,2004
"Geodesics have an infinite proliferation of possible branches, at the whim of subatomic indeterminism.",
Jack Williamson, The Legion of Time
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Well Tom
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