$ amount is meaningless. My MIL owns her home now 55 years.

Her husband replaced windows, put new roof on, put a bathroom in, redid den installed appliances, painted, put a deck in even did concrete all by himself. He is very handy.

His $ investment is low but his house in perfect as he is really good at it.

Probably 20-30k a year in upgrades and maintenance. And we do most of the work ourselves. Some years it's a new kitchen (50k), new wood floors (15k), new landscaping (3k), new roof (8k). It's really never ending.

What makes a difference is that I like a house that runs like a well oiled machine. I won't put up with broken stuff. Something like a rotten French door gets replaced/repaired ASAP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does this matter?

Trying to understand what is a reasonable amount.

I don't understand the question, because there is no way to tell what is a "reasonable amount" - it depends where you live, and what you house looks like. We are not giving you carte blanche to spend hundreds of thousands of your husband's money on an anon message board, OP.

What the actual WHAT?? "your husband's money"?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does this matter?

Trying to understand what is a reasonable amount.

I don't understand the question, because there is no way to tell what is a "reasonable amount" - it depends where you live, and what you house looks like. We are not giving you carte blanche to spend hundreds of thousands of your husband's money on an anon message board, OP.

Holy misogyny, Batman. WTF?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does this matter?

Trying to understand what is a reasonable amount.

I don't understand the question, because there is no way to tell what is a "reasonable amount" - it depends where you live, and what you house looks like. We are not giving you carte blanche to spend hundreds of thousands of your husband's money on an anon message board, OP.

To add, maybe donate some of your money to a worthy cause, like kids with cancer, so you can get a grip on what really matters.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does this matter?

Trying to understand what is a reasonable amount.

I don't understand the question, because there is no way to tell what is a "reasonable amount" - it depends where you live, and what you house looks like. We are not giving you carte blanche to spend hundreds of thousands of your husband's money on an anon message board, OP.

How much you've spent on renovating or maintaining your home really is dependant on when you purchased. Those who purchased in the last 2-3 years have spent way more on renovations and maintenance than those who purchased years ago who did the same type of renovations and maintenance. Fact.

Anonymous wrote:Give total dollar amount / purchase price / length of time you’ve lived there.

Not including taxes.

~$80k, purchase price $680k, bought in 2015. New windows, updated 2 bathrooms, paid $$ to fix the sunroom (unsuccessfully, unfortunately). I'd love to spend more and fix some other things around the house, but I cannot for the life of me find a contractor who does even halfway decent work or stands by their work product. So I deal with things that need updating being crummy for fear of making it worse.

We bought in 2014 for 900k. Have done two renos, both reconfiguring spaces and enlarging kitchen and baths but not adding any space. Probably spent about 200k for that and new HVAC. House is now worth about 1.4

I sometimes wish we’d done one of those large extensions as we’d probably have had a much larger return on the investment, and a bit more space would be nice but I also don’t want a HUGE house so we ended up just making the space work better for us within the existing space (and it really does!)

Anonymous wrote:Give total dollar amount / purchase price / length of time you’ve lived there.

Not including taxes.

Paid $275k
Improvements not counting general maintenance: ~$300k
We have lived here almost 30 years
Current worth: $1.3m

Bought in 1998. 1960's suburban 2000 sq foot colonial in Northern Virginia. Paid $230,000. Assessed value: $850,000

We've done $100,000 in cosmetic upgrades, but most of it was done years ago so the amount we spent is not relevant today at all. We've spent about $75,000 in fixing problems/major maintenance projects.

Renovations/cosmetic upgrades:
Bathrooms: $50,000 - two complete gut jobs 21 years ago and added a full bath to the basement 10 years ago
Kitchen: $25,000 - this was 25 years ago when we first bought the house.
Dining Room: $10,000 - put in built in cabinets
Backyard: $15,000 - new fence, redid the retaining wall in our backyard from timbers to brick and added landscape lighting
Basement: $5000 - basement was sorta finished but made it more comfortable - replaced ceiling tiles with drywall ceiling and recessed lighting; replaced indoor/outdoor carpet with LVT.

Maintenance/Fixing problems:
$75,000 plus - can't remember exactly but we've had a few really big ticket items. We've replaced the roof, siding and all the windows. New HVAC. Upgraded the electrical panel. Waterproofing the basement. Fixed a leak in the main water line from the street to the house.

I'm not counting all the minor maintenance that we've had done - for example, we just had two separate leaks fixed in our master bathroom that cost $1200. When we redid our kitchen 25 years, we replaced all the appliances. Since then, we've replaced the oven, dishwasher twice, and refrigerator twice. Our washer and dryer are 15 years old, so I keep wondering how much longer they're going to last. We replaced the hot water heater 10 years ago when we added the basement bathroom.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bought for $190k 20 years ago, it’s worth $350 now (yes, I am local. Little SFH in PG county). We have put in so much money - maybe $150k? New roof twice, once at purchase and another this year. New siding, HVAC, redid floors (and they need it again), added a front porch, stack pipe burst and was replaced, sewer line burst, added French drains, knocked down a load bearing wall and added a big window, new stairs to basement, replaced all major appliances at least once. Countless leaks, small electric jobs, etc.

Man. Now that I list it all out we should have just moved! Ah well. It’s home.

Why are you putting new roof twice in 20 years?
One brand new roof done well should last more than 20 years.

Yes, well, “well done” is the operative word, isn’t it? We thought it was well done but a couple years ago it began to leak. It’s not like I can go back in time and choose another contractor.

You could just fix the leak .
Why change the whole roof.

House 1 - 650K / 45K renovations / 5 years
House 2 - 330K / 120K / 3 years
House 3 - 285K / 3K / 2 years
House 4 - 110K / 20K / 13 years

My Coop I owned 7 years I had $120 dollars of receipts when I sold.

We paid $675K in 1997. Two substantial renovations at $150K-$200K each (main level and outside hardscaping) and several smaller upgrades/projects—I’d estimate $600K total. Worth about $2.3 million currently.