Anonymous wrote:Sure as long as your intended house budget was $5m

Oh yeah, $5m and a year in a rental. The main reasons renovations are stressful is people don’t budget enough time or money and especially that they try to live there before it’s done.

Sure as long as your intended house budget was $5m

Anonymous wrote:We moved, and our house needs a lot of work. It's worth around $4m. The $1m that a full remodel would cost represents about 13% of our total invested assets, but it's about 1/3 of what we have outside the retirement assets. We are in our 50s. Spouse does not work.
On the one hand, you only live once and the sooner we remodel, the sooner we can enjoy the remodeled house. On the other hand, I can probably retire a few years earlier if we dial back on the renovation.

Thoughts?

Is this your forever home? Do you care about ROI? If it’s no to the former and/or yes to the latter then you will do yourself a disservice by not speaking to a realtor about the ROI from these improvements and looking at current $5-6M comps in the area to ensure that you won’t end up losing money if you sell down the road.

The only other question is whether you want to retire early and whether this expenditure could backfire if you ended up needing to retire before you planned.

I would do it. You have to live in the house.

Anonymous wrote:If you want to retire sooner then don't do it. Surely there is a more modest way to renovate.

And yet, this is the home you've chosen. So, I guess you have to?

But would I spend a million dollars on a home rennovation? Not in a million years. That said, my parents spend about 200K on a rennovation of a 400K (at the time) house, so it's not an unreasonable number, it's just not what I, personally, would spend.

I think it depends what percent of your Networth it is. I just spent $750K on a $3M home. Did everything except the windows (still good), but that includes a new roof, new boiler, new deck and gutting the inside except the walls. Could have spent $4M on a different home, but this was about location and getting to do what we wanted for the inside. The $4M would still have things I didnt' like and it would be hard to find the location and other specific things we wanted (public water and sewer---only a small portion of the island we are on has that). But this is nothing for us to spend, it's our retirement home (will last 20+ years for us until we are 75+, possibly longer). So I bought the house we liked in a location we liked, knowing that we would "fix" what needed to be upgraded/replaced---house was 20+ years old so many repairs/upgrades were needed anyhow, might as well do it the way we want rather than a newer home with a kitchen I don't really like.

Anonymous wrote:That seems like a lot but I’d have to see the breakdown. I just did a kitchen remodel in bethesda and spent 100Kand don’t feel like I skimped at all and probably could have saved more as I now think I spent extra on some things that weren’t worth it. Floor refinishing was definitely the worst so I’d really consider whether you need that. Kitchens are a lot more than bathroom and I’d also consider whether you really need all the bathrooms done or can get away with just cosmetic changes for the ones that aren’t used as much.

I’m actually curious about what new windows cost because we are thinking about doing that ourselves but I really feel like you could spend half as much as you are planning and basically the whole effect.

$100K is not High end.

$15K Subzero fridge
$20K for 48" dual fuel range
$4K for speed oven
$3K dishwasher
$4K wine fridge (or make it $12-15 for 3-4 of them)

So 50-60K for appliances alone. Semi custom cabinets for $60-80K+ (Go custom and spend $125k)
Still have plumbing fixtures, counters, door handles, lighting and flooring. So I would be spending $250K on a kitchen.

Add in 3-4 bathrooms and it's not hard to get to $1M for a 3-4K sq ft home.
My new roof was $50K 2 years ago (30 year certanteed shingles), new boiler/furnace/water heater combo was $30K. New deck was $50K just to replace with Trex like material (higher end stuff).

So it's not difficult to see how you can get to $1M.

Anonymous wrote:Not in DMV,not in a high COL area: About 10 years ago, neighbor spent $1 million on a Kitchen renovation in a home worth less than $2 million. The point is that it is your money & your preferences that matter unless planning to sell soon.

Obviously you can do what you want. But how does one spend $1M on kitchen renovation alone, in a $2M home?!?!?!?! I've just renovated two homes with high end everything and I'm not sure how the hell you'd accomplish that? Even custom cabinets would only be $100K, appliances would top out at $50K, etc. Not sure how you would spend more than $200-250K on an extremely large/extremely high end kitchen and pantry.

If the water is running and the floors are holding, you don't NEED a remodel, you just want something newer and different Whether the benefits are with the cost only you can decide.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t want to deal with or life through that much renovation, sounds like way too much stress and hassle.

This is certainly a consideration.

+1000

We did full renovations while we had another place to live. Cannot imagine living thru it while still trying to actually live in a house. And nothing ever is done on time...even with the best contractors, there are delays beyond their control (supply chain, inspections, etc)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If college funds are squared away, then yes, you can afford this renovation.
Did you have other expensive purchases or lifestyle upgrades in mind?
Do you anticipate your dependents needing more than the usual support as they grow up?

You shouldn't have inserted that your spouse doesn't work. If you guys are past middle-age, it's highly unlikely that he or she would get hired in the first place. It sounds as though you're resentful.

So if this is important to you, sure, go ahead.

College accounts are funded, still have two kids at home though. Spouse was a fed and took the DRP, which was unplanned. I think he is done. I am not resentful, but I am now the sole breadwinner for the family, so our savings will grow slower than planned.

So is this really the home you want to be in in 5+ years once kids are off to college and beyond? Or do you want to downsize? Will this renovation list prevent you (the sole income) from retiring when you wanted?
Me personally, I'd downsize once kids are off to college and renovate my "retirement" home, somewhere I'm going to live for 15-20+ years

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe. What exactly does it entail?

Full house remodel: Flooring, kitchen, bathroom, windows, plus some reconfigurations to make it work better for us.

Sure go for it if you can. But decide what is worth it to you? Do you want to work the extra years to pay for it? Do you want to stay in this home for another r10+ years? If not, why not focus on finding the home you want for the future first

Let's see, you have 7-8m invested and own a 4m home. If I was willing to buy a 4m home, then I'd also be willing to spend 1m to remodel it if it needed it.

But I probably wouldn't even buy a 4m home in the first place.

We just bought a $1.2 million house and put in $300,000 (inside) and $80,000 outside.

I love it but sometimes I wonder if we should have just bought a $1.6 million and not have had the hassle of redoing everything. It was exhausting. And we didn’t even live in it while most of the work was going on.

Will you move out for the work? How long will it take?

This is our forever home (well at least until kids are gone) but we are younger than you and have young elementary age kids. So will be here for at least 20-30 years.

I would do it. But I like my job so working longer is fine with me. And your house will likely be worth more than $1 million, probably more if you do a good job on the project.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe. What exactly does it entail?

Full house remodel: Flooring, kitchen, bathroom, windows, plus some reconfigurations to make it work better for us.

That will cost you more than $1m if you're going high-end. I wouldn't take it on. I'd move first.