Should we spend 500K on a renovation?

[Anonymous]

Life is fleeting and you can afford it. So unless there is something else you want to spend that money on, go for it. You spend so much time in the house.

[Anonymous]

You’ve made it through their childhood without the extra space. Now is the time to think about downsizing in 4 years. Start shedding material things and travel. It’s dumb to enlarge once the kids are grown. Remodel here and there, but no major renovations just as kids are done.

[Anonymous]

My neighbor did something similar. It went so over budget on things like his lawn destroyed, fence destroyed, shrubs destroyed, extra issues, price run ups and his driveway got messed up by huge trucks. In end his reno cost around 650K and his only complaint was it was like 18 months of life and he could have bought a home 650K more in neighborhood and moved. And that 650K home would of been bigger with a bigger plot.

My neighbor told me a guy down the block bought a 7,000 sf home and he got to almost one million in crazy renovations he was so over budget, no expanding SF. These guys well make it 200K a Kitchen, 50K new master bath and you are at 250k and only done two rooms. This house had 7 bedrooms and six baths they renovated plus windows and landscaping got to one million quick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You’ve made it through their childhood without the extra space. Now is the time to think about downsizing in 4 years. Start shedding material things and travel. It’s dumb to enlarge once the kids are grown. Remodel here and there, but no major renovations just as kids are done.

My long dead Mom told me the only time you remodel is in a recession. Like back in 2009 you could get guys to do jobs cheap. I for instance old house in 1999 had plans to do a new kitchen but quotes high, the stock market crashed in 2000 hard and in early 2001 did kitchen for less.

Contractors if busy quote very high. In 2009 my neighbor got work done at cost almost as owner would have to lay off people unless busy and she wanted the job just to pay salaries. Did not care about mark up that much. But right now with tarriffs and contractos charging full price is crazy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My neighbor did something similar. It went so over budget on things like his lawn destroyed, fence destroyed, shrubs destroyed, extra issues, price run ups and his driveway got messed up by huge trucks. In end his reno cost around 650K and his only complaint was it was like 18 months of life and he could have bought a home 650K more in neighborhood and moved. And that 650K home would of been bigger with a bigger plot.

My neighbor told me a guy down the block bought a 7,000 sf home and he got to almost one million in crazy renovations he was so over budget, no expanding SF. These guys well make it 200K a Kitchen, 50K new master bath and you are at 250k and only done two rooms. This house had 7 bedrooms and six baths they renovated plus windows and landscaping got to one million quick.

Agreed! Plus I cannot imagine living in a place while renovating. Did that once with only a kitchen Reno--3 weeks and we were gone for 12 days of it on vacation (planned that way).

For all other renovations, where we gutted the residence, we lived in our 2nd home. Even with an amazing contractor, things go over budget and over schedule.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We did. We don't plan on moving, and we were tired of our tiny bed and bathroom. Very happy with everything we did.

It's good to read this. Did you do it while the kids were still home, and is this in the ballpark of what it cost?

Almost all of your stats match ours. And we lived in through the whole thing. One of ours is in college now and having the space for friends to come visit DC has been great. We have college guests all the time. But the best part is how much I love the house now, when I used to be slightly depressed by it.

We compared the cost of moving, and frankly, we couldn't do better in the area we like for less. Moving is more expensive. Every house priced where we are has the same problems our house does, so we'd end up wanting to renovate those too. The ones already renovated cost significantly more, which tells us how our value will change too. We live in an area with high appreciation. Before the renovation the value had more than double from our purchase price. We paid attention to the appraisal sheets and made sure that we added the items that increase value (two bedrooms, screen porch, square footage, added a shower for an additional full bath, etc.).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just move, dude.

This doesn't translate as easily as you think it does.

[Anonymous]

I am glad we did ours (kids were in middle school) have a good plan to move out, and make sure your builder can get it done quick. for ours we moved out for 5 months, but friends of our with a similar project took 2.5 years due to the builder not working on it consistently

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My neighbor did something similar. It went so over budget on things like his lawn destroyed, fence destroyed, shrubs destroyed, extra issues, price run ups and his driveway got messed up by huge trucks. In end his reno cost around 650K and his only complaint was it was like 18 months of life and he could have bought a home 650K more in neighborhood and moved. And that 650K home would of been bigger with a bigger plot.

My neighbor told me a guy down the block bought a 7,000 sf home and he got to almost one million in crazy renovations he was so over budget, no expanding SF. These guys well make it 200K a Kitchen, 50K new master bath and you are at 250k and only done two rooms. This house had 7 bedrooms and six baths they renovated plus windows and landscaping got to one million quick.

BTW for not complete renovation of a primary bath I'm getting quotes for 70-80k. It really sucks right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You’ve made it through their childhood without the extra space. Now is the time to think about downsizing in 4 years. Start shedding material things and travel. It’s dumb to enlarge once the kids are grown. Remodel here and there, but no major renovations just as kids are done.

We just traveled and enjoyed coming back home to our newly renovated house. YMMD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My neighbor did something similar. It went so over budget on things like his lawn destroyed, fence destroyed, shrubs destroyed, extra issues, price run ups and his driveway got messed up by huge trucks. In end his reno cost around 650K and his only complaint was it was like 18 months of life and he could have bought a home 650K more in neighborhood and moved. And that 650K home would of been bigger with a bigger plot.

My neighbor told me a guy down the block bought a 7,000 sf home and he got to almost one million in crazy renovations he was so over budget, no expanding SF. These guys well make it 200K a Kitchen, 50K new master bath and you are at 250k and only done two rooms. This house had 7 bedrooms and six baths they renovated plus windows and landscaping got to one million quick.

It is highly unlikely that $650 more the his net from the sale of his home, after all transaction costs, would have gotten him a newly renovated house in his neighborhood. He's just grousing.

[Anonymous]

Op,
Are you saying you will be doing this massive, arduous remodel while your kids are living at home and are in high school? Do you realize what high school kids schedules are like and how much pressure they are living with these days?

I think it borders on child abuse to do a major remodel while your kids are in high school. 😜

Do you realize you will not be able to live in the house while much of this is going on?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We did. We don't plan on moving, and we were tired of our tiny bed and bathroom. Very happy with everything we did.

+1. We did it when our kids were the same age as yours. Worked out great and thrilled with our “new” home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish my parents had renovated our house my freshman year in HS so I could have enjoyed it for 3 years. Instead they renovated when I left for college and I didn’t get to enjoy it nearly as much!

Would the OP and kids need to move to a rental home or apartment for the year of renovation? Or live among the dust of construction? You may not have loved it that much during your stressful high school years when you just want to sleep and eat in peace.

[Anonymous]

I would think about whether you would still start it if it costs 750 or even a million in the end. I’d rather have that money for retirement but ymmv.