Will your home renovation plan be worth the investment? Or are you spending too much money on the wrong projects?
If you’re thinking about extensive home renovations, it is very important to pick the right types of improvements dependent on your goals. If the renovations are to position your home for sale, you’ll want to make sure that you’re getting a good return on your investment.
Entry door replacement
Some things you need to consider before making the investment include:
The current value of your house
The value of your neighbors’ houses
The current state of your local housing market
How soon you’ll sell after making improvements
A couple of other questions you may want to consider:
What climate do you live in?
What’s the weather like where you live? If you’re in a warmer climate, it may make more sense to improve the back yard with a nice deck or patio. You might focus more on landscaping and outdoor features like a fire pit or barbecue.
If you’re in a cooler climate, where you spend more time indoors typically, it may make more sense to focus on interior upgrades, like renovating the family room or den. You may focus on upgrading or adding a fireplace.
What is your neighborhood like?
Are you in a trendy area of town? Are many of the older homes getting full renovations or being completely rebuilt? If so, you may need to consider doing some upgrades to the kitchen or bathroom.
If your fixtures are traditional, you may be able to update the look with a fresh coat of paint. If they are contemporary or modern, but out-of-date from 20 years ago, you may need to think about a bigger home renovation project to modernize the look of your kitchen or bath.
You may immediately think that a gut renovation of your kitchen or bathroom will yield a surefire profit boost, but hold on before you start the demo.
It may not be as glamorous as a brand new marble bath or granite counter in the kitchen, but basic maintenance improvements can help you almost immediately recoup your costs and increase your home’s value.
5 basic home maintenance projects to prioritize
According to Remodeling Magazine’s 2015 Cost vs. Value report, these top 5 basic home improvements can help you get the biggest increase in the resale value of your home:
Entry door replacement
Swap out an old wooden door for a fiberglass or steel door and you’ll immediately get back most or all of your investment. A solid front door increases the security of the home and also adds curb appeal—essential if you want to attract buyers. If you’re living in a trendy, upscale neighborhood, you may also want to pair your door with a brand new smart lock for upgraded security.
A fiberglass door goes for an average investment of $2000, and you’ll get 72% of that back. For steel, you’ll invest $1200 and get almost 100% of your investment back on the resale.
Garage door replacement
A brand-new, motorized garage door is a simple, practical upgrade. It will instantly increase the security of your home as well as the visual appeal. It is an investment of about $1500, and you can typically recoup 88% of it.
Replacing the roof
If your roof is 15 years or older, it may need repairs or replacement. And while most buyers may be gun shy to make an offer on a home that needs a new roof, they are more likely to bid if the roof is newly replaced—and even make offers over asking price. A roof replacement will be nearly $20,000 on average, and you’ll typically get back about 72% of your investment.
Siding replacement
Nothing makes a house look more like a tear down than peeling paint or damaged siding. Adding a new exterior such as vinyl siding, or upgrading part of the siding partially with manufactured stone veneer, will protect the interior from serious weather damage and also instantly revitalize your home’s curb appeal. And because adding new siding is typically a large investment, it is better to tackle this project before attempting to resale your home. Vinyl siding is typically about $12,000, and you’ll get about 80% of your investment back on the resale.
Window replacement
Solid windows can mean the difference in thousands of dollars per year in home heating and cooling costs. And if you live in a climate of extreme temperatures, installing well-insulated windows can pay off quickly. Windows are a bigger investment; to replace 10 windows, you’ll need nearly $10,000 for vinyl or close to $11,000 for wood. However, you’ll typically recoup about 79% of your investment.
Here are some other considerations:
4 pricier home renovation projects worth considering after maintenance
Once you’ve handled the basic maintenance of your home, you can think about other projects that may or may not increase the value of your home but can definitely increase your own enjoyment of living there.
Attic Bedrooms
If your home has a nice sized attic that is well insulated, you may want to consider turning that unused space into an additional bedroom. Adding any additional useable space, especially bedrooms, is an easy way to instantly increase the value of your home. Though it may be a considerable investment, it is easier and cheaper than building an addition. Turning an attic space into a useable bedroom can cost upward of $50,000. However, you’ll likely recoup about 77% of your investment.
Basement Remodels
As long as you don’t live in a flood zone, a basement remodel can be a great way to make dead space useable. You may even be able to carve it into a couple of rooms—such as a children’s rec room, an extra den or family room, or an additional bedroom and bathroom. A basement remodel averages about $65,000, and you can expect to get 73% of your investment back on the resale.
Bathroom – Additions or Renovations
A new bathroom renovation can be a good return on investment if you are living in a hot real estate market. Adding new features that are popular in comparable homes in your area—like walk-in shower instead of a tub, or floor-to-ceiling steam option—can add instant appeal.
However, if you only have one bathroom in your home, you may be better off by building an additional bathroom instead of renovating the one that you have. Older homes don’t always have enough bathrooms, so adding an extra can give your home’s value an instant boost. The Value of Housing Characteristics study by National Association of Realtors and Florida State University found that adding an extra bathroom increased the sale price of a home by 8.7%, more than twice the rate for adding a bedroom.
An additional bathroom may cost an average of $35,000 and you can get an average of 60% of that cost back in the resale. A remodel of an existing bathroom can cost about $16,000, of which you can expect to get 70% back in a resale.
Kitchen Renovations
A beautiful kitchen can be the one feature that sells the home. Kitchen features that are often the most valued are kitchen islands, double ovens and built-in refrigerators, according to the National Association of Realtors study.
If you’re in an older home with a separate kitchen, you might want to see if you can remove a wall and make it an open concept kitchen, which have become much more common in recent years. Stone floors, granite counters, and commercial-style appliances are also trendy, and may work well in your home. But you also need to think about what’s popular in other homes in your area. Are these features that would sell well in your immediate area?
To get the most out of your home renovation projects, it makes sense to start by consulting a knowledgeable, experienced realtor. Because they’re constantly evaluating properties in various neighborhoods, as well as researching comps, they’ll immediately know which renovations will pay off in the short term, and which ones will be simply ‘nice to have’ changes.
Which home renovations have you been considering? Let us know in the comments.
For more expert advice about prepping your home for sale, or any other aspect of buying or selling a home in Austin’s hot real estate market, contact the professionals at GoodLife Realty.
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