Home Improvements for Best ROI

If you’re a homeowner, after time you might start thinking you want to make a change in your home. Maybe you’re bored and want to shake things up or, you’re starting to think about increasing your home’s value with an eye toward selling. Either way, it’s important to consider that not all home improvements offer a great return on investment (ROI).

With a little digging, the fact is, you’ll find that a number of home improvements cost hundreds or even thousands more than they are worth. They may seem like a good idea but, they don’t add that much resale value to your home and they just end up costing you a lot of money.

If you absolutely love the improvement, that’s great, you should love being in your home. However, if the idea is to make your home more marketable and allow you to recoup a larger portion of your investment, then you need to think about renovations that make sense, cost-wise, later on.

Everyone is doing it

With the advent of HGTV and major home improvement shows glamorizing home remodeling, the improvement business is booming in the country. In the first quarter of 2019, Americans spent about $339 billion dollars on home improvement projects. That’s a 7% rise from the previous year.

Again, it’s important to realize that all home improvements are not the same in resale value. Remodeling.com recently conducted a survey in which they compared the cost of renovation with what you could expect to recoup from the investment. Which renovation projects are the best are a little surprising.

So, before you buy 700 tons of original brick from a now-defunct shipyard in Hyannis Port for your new kitchen or 2 tons of Pacific Ocean driftwood for your home office walls, think simple. Here are the top five best simple home improvement projects with the best ROI for the money.

Garage Door Installation

This is a project that has the highest ROI rate going. If you take some time and shop wisely, you can get a good garage door at a discount and then, you might even be able to make a little money on the improvement. It’s got curb appeal and usefulness and it’s one of those projects that people usually never think about, but it's a winner.

Average Job Cost: $3,470

Resale Value: $3,411

Cost Recoup: 98.3%

Manufactured Stone Veneer

This one is about major curb appeal. Getting people to stop, come into your open house and spend time is really vital to the selling process. One of the factors that get people out of their car and in your front door is curb appeal. Putting in manufactured stone veneer costs much less than adding an actual stone exterior but it definitely increases the value of your home and gets people to stop.

Average Job Cost: $8,211

Resale Value: $7,986

Cost Recoup: 97.1%

Entry Door Replacement

Again, this goes to curb appeal. It also weighs heavily on first impression appeal as well. Your front door can set the tone for welcoming and hint at all the warmth and comfort behind it. Shop around and find that expensive-looking door that you can snatch up for cheap. This way you can possibly recoup most of what you spent on it.

Average Job Cost: $1,471

Resale Value: $1,344

Cost Recoup: 91.3%

Wood Deck Addition

One thing that house buyers think about and look for is entertaining space. A nice, wood deck becomes an extension of your indoor entertainment area. So, you’ll have indoor and outdoor space for the family and friends and it will add a ton of resale value to your home if it’s well built and well maintained. Now, this is not a cheap undertaking by any means but, that’s good. You don’t want to cut corners on a deck, that can lead to disaster and a hideous mess to clean up. But, when done right, it will significantly increase the value of your home. Probably enough to cover the cost.

Average Job Cost: $10,950

Resale Value: $9,065

Cost Recoup: 82.8%

Minor Kitchen Remodeling

Sure, you can decide to rip out the entire kitchen. Add a gasoline-powered center island complete with palm trees and monkeys and spend a ton of money. That’s fine. But to bring more value to your home you can actually get away with minor changes to your kitchen and save money. How about a new floor or new appliances. Even refurbishing cabinets is going to be more cost-effective and get you a better ROI than a serious strip to the bones remodel. Choose wisely, shop for good deals and there’s a good chance you can get most of your money back.

Average Job Cost: $21,198

Resale Value: $17,193

Cost Recoup: 81.1%

Those are just five simple, easy to do remodels that will add value and curb appeal to your home. Ways to make your place more comfortable, add some fresh spark to your old place, and add value when it comes time to sell. The remodeling doesn’t have to be lavish and over the top expensive to make your home look more inviting to possible buyers.

Not the Best Value

Here are three remodeling projects that a lot of people undertake, mistakenly thinking the resale value is going to match the time, money, and energy they put into the project. The truth is, they don’t. They cost a lot and really never give you back what you put in.

An upscale bathroom remodel. Taking a regular bathroom and enlarging to 100 sq/ft may seem like a wise investment but, unless you have a huge family and need the space, it’s really not going to do much for you. The average cost of this kind of endeavor runs about $64,743 and the payback value is only 60.2%

A midrange master suite addition. Adding an addition to your home is a larger undertaking than just doing a remodel. And, if your addition is for a specific room that really has only one use, you’re not really going to recoup what you spend. The average cost of this project runs about $130, 986 and your payback value is going to hover at around 59.4%.

An upscale master suite. A lot of people think this is a great idea. Remodel the master suite, enlarge the bathroom, add a lounging area. It’s a great idea but seriously, unless you’re a 1940s film star, you have to consider how much time you’re spending in the bedroom and what that space and money could be doing for other, more trafficked areas of your home. A 32-by-20 master bedroom will cost about $271,470 and your payback is only going to be about 50.4%

What is the Personal Value

Remodeling either for personal comfort or to improve the resale value of your home shouldn’t be jumped into lightly. There are a lot of factors. If you’re remodeling with the goal of getting a better price when you sell, look at housing trends. What features are must-haves for current homebuyers? Something that you think is important or special might not be as important to what people are looking for in the market. While you’re at it, if you decide to make a big change, you’ll want to look at home lenders who can help you with the cost of your home improvements.

When making changes, shop around, look for sales, and deals on materials. Know where you can maybe cut corners and where you most definitely cannot. Talk to real estate agents and find out what most new home or repeat home buyers really want and then, decide how to proceed. Not every home remodeling project is going to be worth the time, money, and energy you put into it. Do your research, take your time and you will find that perfect balance between practical and desirable.