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Most Requested Home Features Not Best Value
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CNNMoney printed an article today on the most requested home improvement projects and topping the list were, in order of popularity, home office, game room, and a mud room. In terms of best value, these three aren’t the best value. Only home office appears on the list of best valued home improvements (60% return) but it goes to show that people don’t pick what the best dollar return improvement, they pick the one they’ll enjoy the most. (something pointed out in the best value article as what should be driving your improvement decisions anyway)
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Love this article.
People! Stop taking Home Equity Lines for improvements that don’t raise the value of the house.
Buy a house that has those features and enjoy the money someone else lost!
I think the best features of the house are the ones you can’t buy – location. The townhome I’m in now, though gorgeous on the inside, can’t claim those internals as its best features. We are a three minute walk from a library, seven minute walk from a supermarket, and a ten minute walk from a nearby lake and its two and a half mile path around it. You can’t buy those as additions from any contractor I know.
How you spend your home improvement dollars should vary with your plans for the house. If you might put the home on the market in the next couple of years, go for the big selling points and decorate in neutral colors. If you are settling in until your newborn graduates from college, invest in the features that YOU want in the house and plaster the walls with your kids’ artwork. In twenty years, stainless steel appliances may be passe (and broken down), but you’ll have twenty years of memories of your game room. Also, these days we are not concerned so much with how much of our investment we will recoup, but rather whether we can sell the house at all.