At the front end of doing exactly this. I am investing in the house I want to live in. I certainly hope I will be here at least another 10 years, and hopefully more. I don’t know if it will result in my house being the most expensive on the block, but my goal is definitely to make it the nicest house on the block!

Anonymous wrote:We are about to put 500K into a house we bought for 800K. Would love to move instead but the neighborhood has skyrocketed around us. We can't afford $1.8-$2M+, so we'll work on making our small house a little less small and be here for the next 8 years until kids go to college.

We just did literally the same with same timeline. I don’t expect a great return on the investment, but staying in the neighborhood in a house that we love and meets our needs was worth it to me.

There is a house nearby that had major updating addition and remodeling. It’s in a HOA community so from the front it looks like other homes. But is amazing inside with tons of remodeling and a huge addition and Pool etc out back.
The home is now for sale but it is sitting on the market because they are listing it based on its specs and work done to improve it, but the neighborhood is not a neighborhood that people will pay that amount for so no one is going for it. People who have that dollar amount can get nice homes in neighborhoods where they all sell at that value and have larger yards and high dollar street looks.

Do what works for you. 25 years ago we bought what we thought was a perfect house for $320,000. Six years and 2 kids later, we put another $300,000 into it (full gut of bathrooms, kitchen + a 2-level addition). House is now worth $1.5 million, and we still live here and love our home

There are lots of houses in my neighborhood that are 800 houses without renovations and 1.2 houses if they are nicely renovated and updated. So I think it depends on your neighborhood and why your house is only 800. If it’s because it has a kitchen and bath from the 1980s but is otherwise a good house in a neighborhood where updated houses sell for a million, this makes total sense.

Anonymous wrote:Don't be the most expensive house on the block.

This is true, OP.