investment property

Why Do Some People Remodel Instead of Sell?

You may have been asking yourself this question for a long time: should I remodel my current home or move to another one that better fits my needs? While the answer is obviously complicated for many reasons, there are many benefits to remodeling your current home before deciding whether or not you want to move.

 

There are many benefits when tailoring your current home to your family’s needs. The first is being able to stay in your neighborhood. When it comes to moving, you have to consider school districts, the commute to and from work, and access to favorite stores and other amenities. Finding the house that best fits what you’d like on your wishlist is far more difficult when you’re trying to stay in a specific area.

 

So when it comes to a home that just isn’t working for you any more, do you remodel it and “love it” or take the new equity and list it?

 

You may be familiar with the HGTV television series, “Love It or List It.” While it’s not always as clear-cut as they try to make it on the show, there are definitely pros and cons to simply finding a new home. Beyond the obvious emotional attachments you and your family have to your current home, trying to find the house you need within your budget may be a lot harder than you think.

 

If you have the home equity in order to make improvements, whether or not you plan on selling your home, you probably should. While home improvement shows can create a lot of false hope about remodeled homes selling for much more than they would have before, done properly, remodels do actually increase the value of your home. You just have to take a lot of things into consideration.

 

You may not have noticed this on home improvement shows. Many of the homes they remodel are in good neighborhoods that tend to be extremely desirable or in highly competitive real estate markets. Of course, this is done on purpose, because they are often flawed homes on extremely valuable property. Oftentimes, they don’t tell you exactly where the remodeled home is, and this is one reason why. (There are privacy reasons, of course, too.)

 

What you really have to ask yourself and your family is this: do we want to stay where we already are and just make the house work better for us? While it is technically possible, you can’t typically just pick up a house and put it in a convenient spot for you. So if you find the perfect house in the wrong neighborhood, it probably isn’t going to be the perfect home. You have to weigh the emotional and practical aspects of packing up and moving against the benefits of an improved living space.

 

If you’re planning on moving, remodeling your home is definitely worth considering if your real estate agent agrees that it will move your home faster. But if you’re home just has some functional issues that can be resolve, just as so often happens on “Love It or List It,” it’s usually easier to make what fixes you can, and make your existing house a better home.