To remodel or not?

[Anonymous]

We have an early '80s kitchen that is in fairly good condition. However, it is definitely clear that this is a 30 year old kitchen. We've gotten all new stainless appliances over the last couple years. We always intended to redo the whole thing, but now it seems that we will be selling the place in a year. Do you think it would be worth it, in terms of resale value, to do a cheapie remodel just to make it a little more modern? If it's likely we won't recoup our money, we would rather just sell as-is. Prices in our neighborhood seem all over the place, but the fully remodeled places of course sell for a little more. It's a townhouse, if that makes a difference.

[Anonymous]

I would not remodel if selling in 1 year. You already replaced appliances with stainless - also replace countertops with granite, update dated lighting fixtures and cabinet pulls, and repaint the walls if need be.

[Anonymous]

I can tell you what i did. I had a 35-year-old townhouse and paid $145K for it in 1999. I sold it this past May for $325K after less than 10 days on the market. I found a good contractor who was able to redo my kitchen and my 2.5 baths last fall for about $23K. We also painted and put in new carpets, since the carpets were showing a lot of wear after at least 15 years. The place looked amazing and I feel like I did recoup my investment. The non-renovated homes in my subdivision (there were 400+ townhomes in two different models, plus end/interior variations) brought a much lower price than the renovated ones.

up to you - if you can find someone to do the counters, cabinets and flooring (and lighting?) for a reasonable price, it'll probably help your place sell more quickly and at a better price. If you don't want to do that work, just put it on the market and see what happens. It was kind of a bummer to do all the work and then not get to enjoy it for more than 8 months!

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't bother with a cheapie remodel. When we were looking at houses I hated to see that because I didn't want to pay for a crappy renovation. I'd rather just have it done myself and do it right. If you have the money to do a solid mid-range kitchen that a buyer will actually want to use for many years, then it might be worth it.

[Anonymous]

If the cabinets are in good condition, check out the reviews for the rustoleum cabinet renovations. I'm totally sold. Our kitchen is in great shape, but we have these totally 80s cabinets. Even the cabinets are in good shape. With a new color and new hardware, it will look like a totally new kitchen.

[Anonymous]

10:46 PP here - 13:28 is right. I did a nice remodel with nice maple cabinets, a good neutral granite and porcelain floor tiles that could go with different color schemes. You definitely don't want to go cheap if you do remodel. I looked at a few houses with bland, cheap, horrible new cabinets and thought "what a shame that I'm gonna have to rip out brand new cabinets if I buy this house." especially if you're over-paying for the house because the owner is trying to recoup the cost of the crappy cabinets.

[Anonymous]

Agree don't do a cheapie remodel that looks cheap! What about just painting the cabinets and putting on new cabinet hardware? That can make almost any kitchen look better and you'd have a really small investment. Might also suggest adding granite counters for a couple thousand dollars. Granite plus stainless is what most people look for anyway, so you'd probably get a lot of bang for your buck.

[Anonymous]

10:46 can you share the name of your contractor? That seems like such a low price for the amount of work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree don't do a cheapie remodel that looks cheap! What about just painting the cabinets and putting on new cabinet hardware? That can make almost any kitchen look better and you'd have a really small investment. Might also suggest adding granite counters for a couple thousand dollars. Granite plus stainless is what most people look for anyway, so you'd probably get a lot of bang for your buck.

This is also what we did. We painted the cabinets white, had granite counters plus new backsplash installed for a couple of thousand dollars, updated the hardware and installed new floors. We spent less than $5k and it looked like a new kitchen.