A lot of sellers that I speak with want to know what they can do to help attract buyers, get an offer and sell their home quickly, for the best possible price. The January issue of REALTOR magazine had a great article addressing some common home improvements, and what sellers could expect to recoup when they go to sell their home. It may not be surprising that four out of the top five improvements have to do with curb appeal. In fact, replacing your garage door can recoup up to 93% in the Denver area. For example, if you spend $1,228 on a new garage door, its resale value would be $1,143. Replacing your entry door with a new steel unit would yield 86% of the cost recouped during a resale. While these numbers cannot be applied accurately to an individual remodeling project for a particular address, it can help when trying to determine what the resale value of a particular project might be.
According to REALTOR magazine, œ(c)onstruction cost estimates are generated by HomeTech Information Systems (www.hometechonline.com) of Bethesda, Md., which takes into account construction commodity data and labor cost information from a nationwide network of remodeling contractors. The company prepares a detailed construction estimate for each project and then adjusts this baseline cost for each city to account for regional pricing variations. However, project costs are based on estimates for hypothetical projects, with no reliable way to accommodate local and short-term fluctuations in supply and demand. Resale value data for each project are aggregated from estimates provided by REALTORS. E-mail surveys were sent to some 150,000 appraisers, sales agents, and brokers in the summer of 2010, and more than 3,000 participated. Respondents were instructed not to make judgments about the motivation of the home owner inthe decision to undertake the remodeling project or to sell the house.
The on-line article from the National Association of Realtors is available here, and a free copy of the cost vs. value report for the Denver market can be downloaded at www.costvsvalue.com. Or, shoot me an email at nate@liveurbandenver.com and I would be happy to send you a pdf copy of the report and help you figure out what types of remodeling jobs would make sense based on your home, neighborhood and local real estate trends.
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