How much return on my renovations?
I own a small (450 sq ft) 1 BR in Brooklyn Heights with a 4’x4′ kitchen and a 4’x6′ bathroom. Both need to be remodeled, but they are so small that I am hesitant to spend more than I may get in return. Does anyone have any rules of thumb about how much you usually…
I own a small (450 sq ft) 1 BR in Brooklyn Heights with a 4’x4′ kitchen and a 4’x6′ bathroom. Both need to be remodeled, but they are so small that I am hesitant to spend more than I may get in return. Does anyone have any rules of thumb about how much you usually need to spend in order to see a solid return on your investment (for instance if it costs me $8-10k to renovate, will I be able to get $16-20k more for my place?) I realize this is kind of vague, but I have no clue how much is too much or too little for renovation.
Thanks for your help and ideas!!
4′ by 4′ including cabinets and applicances? I think you are referring to the footprint that you can walk into, unless I am still missing something. How can you fit a refrigerator, sink and a stove into 4′ x 4′? Back to back?
Thanks for all your suggestions, and yes, it is a 4’x4′ kitchen, which looks like it hasn’t been updated since the 1970s….
agreed. if you’re doing the reno solely to boost your return, spend the minimum to make it look as clean, new and spacious as possible. other than that, you’re not going to get the money back because no one is going to pay a premium for your personal taste. if you’re doing the reno for your own personal enjoyment, then spend away, keeping in mind that much of the value will go toward your own consumption rather than roi.
In general, it’s said that you always recoup investment on bathrooms and kitchens. But, and this is a big but, that might be different in an uncertain real estate market. From my own experience, I believe we made a major return on our investment when we turned an extra half bath into a full (thereby converting our apt from 1.5 baths to 2 full ones, which hugely increased its value). However we very consciously did NOT remodel our kitchen, nor did we completely redo our other full bath: our thinking was that, to really significantly increase value, we had to structurally change the apt (that is, adding a whole 2nd bath as opposed to having only a toilet there). Doing a cosmetic fix seemed riskier in terms of return on investment since our kitchen and other bath were perfectly OK (and we had done some less costly, but still important, improvements i.e. a new bathroom floor and sink, new stove & frig in kitchen) so spending another 10-20K to redo tile work and remaining fixtures seemed unlikely to yield much return, esp since potential buyers may just want to redo to their own taste anyway. On the other hand, if your kitchen and bath are truly very dumpy, and you plan to sell soon, you might be wise to at least do some fixes – you might be able to do some things that are not extremely expensive but still improve the overall impression (redoing the floor in our older full bathroom is a case in point – it cost about $1500 and made a HUGE difference to the overall impression of the room).
4×4 kitchen?
Your best solution is to look at comparable places on the market and see what they have.
It’s not if you spend this much you get this much- its meeting or exceeding the standards that the buyer expects. And the easiest way to see those standards is to look at comps.