Renovating For Resale
Many people who buy older homes and embark on massive renovation projects do so as an investment. We call ours a long term flip, a five year plan. We are on year five. Five years seems almost laughable now. On bad days I think we may die here.
What projects improve resale value? For us it was easy. Every single room needed a gutting. The electrical system needed to be updated. All the bathrooms needed new plumbing.
Tops on the list of projects to increase the value of your home is to have an updated kitchen. I can’t wait for mine.
When we first looked at our house we asked our realtor why no one had bought the house. It was priced well below market value. And he said, “People are really turned off by the kitchen.”
At the time it made us laugh, because the kitchen, while ugly, wasn’t that bad. It certainly was not the quality of kitchen that belonged in this particular house in this particular neighborhood, but I was much more turned off by the lack of laundry room, the ugly wallpapers in every room, and the hideous wall-to-wall carpeting. Oh, and the multitude of bathrooms that needed extensive renovations was high on the list of turn-offs. But the bones of the house and the light? Those drew me in. I could see it was a house that wanted to be pretty– the ugly duck that could be turned into a swan.
After we were in the house for a few months we realized:
a) The kitchen cabinets were made of cheap plywood. We promptly broke several by doing nothing more than shutting them. Oh, I may have kicked one in a fit of anger one day, but shhhhhh, no need to go there.
b) While spacious, the kitchen was seriously lacking in usable counter space and had the least functional floor plan possible. It was almost as if they had thought about how to make the kitchen as user UNfriendly as possible.
c) And why was the refrigerator all the way inside of the pantry and not in the main kitchen?
d) We now owned the world’s smallest wall ovens and their cousin the world’s smallest refrigerator, a refrigerator, it should be noted, whose doors could not open all the way because they hit the walls of the pantry.
e) New kitchens are expensive. Shocking, mind blowing, painfully expensive. This one was the toughest realization.
Now, in Year Four, we will finally be finishing our kitchen.
I read through the lists of projects that the so-called experts say improve the value of your home. And I had to take issue with several points. I know beyond a shadow of doubt that vinyl siding and replacement vinyl windows are not considered improvements in an historic neighborhood.
I think the best thing that you can do before remodeling your home is to find out what comparable houses in your market have inside of them. What improvements have been made? Do all the houses in your neighborhood have granite counters and professional grade appliances? If so, you will be doing your home a disservice if you put in laminate counters and bottom of the line white appliances.
Similarly the opposite is true. Do not over improve your house. If your house is in a neighborhood of houses that sell for $100,000 don’t throw $60,000 into a new kitchen thinking that your house will now be worth $160,000. It won’t be. You won’t get the money back.
