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$$How much to spend on improvements?$$
Updating and remodeling your home to increase its value can be tricky. Some costly improvement may only increase the value of your home by a small margin while some inexpensive improvement will over triple the return on your investment. When trying to determine how much to invest in your home/property and what type of improvements will yield the most return on your investment, consider the following:
First consider the price range of the homes in your area and narrow down the homes price range to those that offer the same style, square footage and features as yours. In other words the house next door may have little to do with the value of your home if it does not match the criteria of your home.
Example
If your home is a three bedroom bungalow with two full baths, two car garage, finished basement and 1700 square feet you will not view it the same as the two bedroom house next door
that was built on a slab with one bath and one car garage, and the same goes for comparing homes with larger and/or a greater number of features.
Now that you may have an idea of the price range of homes that are good comparable’s to your home, you have a good base in which to determine how much to invest.
Example
If the price range for your home is 150,000 to 170,000 and your homes value falls around 165,000 you may not want to invest 25,000 in improvements because your market simply will not up hold the value. Every market has a maximum amount of money a buyer is willing to pay for a particular property.
True Stories
Wile walking through the home improvement store on my way to select some replacement doors for my house, I noticed there were doors exactly like the one’s I was replacing, they cost three times as much as the doors that I was going to replace them with! Needless to say, I put a little elbow into my doors and kept them. A lesson well learned.
My Husband and I bought an ugly house some years ago that was going to need a new roof soon.We got a good deal on it so we went right to work! The walls were in rough shape and the woodwork was a bit worn. We spent about $6-7,000 on repairs such as a new roof, new tile for the bathroom and the kitchen, a new pedestal sink in the bathroom and not much more to be honest. We did an awesome job spackling and sanding over all the walls before painting them and opted to lightly sand over all the wood doors and trim in the house, stained over all the wood in the house with matching stain and a clear finish. In short we sold the house a short time later and made a great profit.
In’s and Out’s for Improvements.
THE BIG OUT
As you may very well know, the real estate market is considered to be a "buyers market"and what that means is there’s more houses on market than buyers to buy them. There for, offering a home that needs some repairs, remodeling or updating and putting it on the market "as is" is definitely out, if for some reason you can not address these issues, then your only option to still attract a buyer is offer a low asking price ! If you would like to have a FREE ESTIMATE for all your home improvement needs-click the "call the contractor" link at the TOP of the page. |
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What Category does your home fall under?
Starter Homes / Empty Nesters
Is your home considered to be a starter home or a good "down sizing" home for empty nesters? If so, you may want to consider the fact that this type of home does not have a heavy demand.
In’s
Remodeling kitchens and baths are good investment in any home. If you are going to remodel the kitchen or a bath in this type of home you may want to choose smaller, middle grade, neutral cabinets and vanities that are simple and functional. A simple deck will be put to good use in this home.
Out’s
This type of home does not require a lot of kitchen storage for large amount of groceries and will not have to withstand the wear of preparing nightly meals for a larger number of people. It makes good sense to leave a little open space for a small kitchen table than to have a large number of cabinets that wrap around the entire kitchen and use up all the available space. In this case your dollars would be better spent on installing patio doors and building a small deck off the kitchen than on a large number of cabinets, costly counter tops and back splash materials. Not to mention that starter homes usually change hands much more often than larger family style homes and redecorating will occur more often as well. In this case you would be wise to choose neutral colors and materials.
Family Homes
The family home often offers larger sized bedrooms , a family room in addition to the living room, no less than one and one half baths and a much larger dining spaces such as a large eat-in kitchens and /or a separate dining room. The home owner spends the largest amount of time in this home. If you have a home that could be considered a family home, but is lacking some of these features, here are a few good suggestion. If you have any unfinished space in your home such as an attic or a basement you will want to finish it to add living space. A finished attic makes a good additional bedroom and finishing a basement make a good family room with an additional bath room is a very cost effective and a good alternative to building an addition.
In’s
Remodeling a kitchen with a good amount of cabinets is a great investment here, built in dishwasher, broom closet/cabinet with enough room to store a tall kitchen trash can is a big winner. Use materials that will wear well, to stretch your budget, you may want to purchase unfinished wood cabinets.
Kitchen Islands complete with a breakfast bar and stools are still a big hit. As for remodeling a master bath, an extra wide vanity or one with two sinks goes over real well.
Out’s
Wall paper and borders are out for the most part while solid colored paints are in, be careful not to choose fade colors.
Caution!
Before considering any home improvements or upgrades to your home you have to calculate the loss of any materials that will be removed. You do not get a dollar for dollar return on all money spent on improvements to your home.
Example
If you replace every door in your house from wood to white, replace all the carpet from dark tan to light tan, replace every light fixture and replaced the white appliance with black or stainless steel and it cost you $20,000 to do it, your home will not be worth $20,000 dollars more then it was before. It will be worth more in the sense that these items are now new but, the value of the house has not changed much. It will however be more attractive to buyers but, you have simply replaced items that were already there. There for, you have made the house better or more attractive and you are likely to get a better sell price for it, but you will not got dollar for dollar.
