I went down a rabbit hole recently, searching through properties for sale in my area on several real estate sites.
Basically I liked nothing, I found major faults with almost everything I examined. I’m really super hard to please when it comes to houses. :-)
Not that I’m looking to move, I just like to see what is out there these days so I can better help clients prepare their homes to sell or advise on how far to go with remodeling.
I had two recent consultations visiting houses that were on the market, where the potential homeowners wanted to discuss what to update.
Fear of Over-remodeling for the Neighborhood?
Basically, we were looking to find out at what point would those updates desired just take the house out of range for the neighborhood. In other words, would the money needed to update a house in a big way to fix things like layout, square footage, window shapes or sizes, structural issues like tearing down walls, be worth it.
While I’m a big fan of going all in with a remodel and changing and updating everywhere to get a home the way you want, I realize that over-remodeling a house for the neighborhood can be a problem and something most homeowners really don’t want to do.
Sure, they want to tackle all these areas of the home to customize them or update them for today’s living, but at some point, there’s a line to cross where it just might not be worth it.
I also realize that even if a homeowner plans for this to be their “forever” home, life happens and circumstances change.
So, with all that in mind, I look for these things, particularly, when advising someone on the possibilities of remodeling a house they are thinking of buying.
These reasons not to buy might seem obvious….
You may think this info is obvious, but because remodeling costs are so misrepresented on tv and because buyers can potentially fall in love with a house and then not see the reality of what it would take to do everything they want, it helps to remember some of these points.
Because these are expensive items to tackle in a remodel, it often leaves little money in a budget for the pretty stuff….the decorative lighting, the wallpaper, the impressive countertops, the unique tile.
So, if you are intent on having your money spent where it shows, then you might not want to spend so much of it on these items below.
1) Overall layout of the house
If the general layout of the house doesn’t meet your needs, you might want to reconsider your purchase.
There are lots of hidden dollars in a remodel when you start messing with the layout. Pushing walls around and reconfiguring appliances and plumbing locations can add lots of dollars to your project. (Not that we don’t do that a lot and love to help create really customized homes.)
I visited one property several years ago with a homeowner who loved the back part of the house where the kitchen and family room were. This area was actually quite small by normal standards in this area.
They wanted to reconfigure walls here and there to get more square footage there, but really, there was just no place to go push out to gain more square footage in that part of the house, without significant remodeling dollars.
The problem was that the house was big, but big in the wrong place.
It had a huge living, dining and entry at the front of the house, square footage that would really be wasted for this homeowner.
2) The Home’s Exterior
What if the exterior style is not to your liking and there are major elements that you want to change. The front of the house is something that can be changed, with homeowner association considerations, of course, but not without a lot of money.
I’m not just talking about a new front door and painting the brick here.
If you don’t like the size or shape of the windows, the pitch of the roof, the material combinations, that turet on the side of the house, etc., then you definitely need to consider the kind of money necessary to affect the changes you want.
One of my remodel projects….
I have a client in California who has owned a house for over 20 years. They moved back about 2 years ago and embarked on a big remodel. I did the schematic design for their kitchen and bathrooms, recommended some overall modifications and they took it from there.
While they had limits and a budget when they started, they ended up just going all in, basically tearing out and rebuilding almost everything, leaving only basically some studs and a concrete slab.
They ended up totally revamping the exterior as well, changing it from a Mediterranean look house to something more modern.
BEFORE EXTERIOR REMODEL - Here’s the before pic of this Mediterranean style home that went more modern and clean-lined. It was a typical building style for California.
It looks amazing, as they are getting near the end, but they couldn’t have gone all in like this if their property value hadn’t increased so much in the last 20 years.
What they’ve done to this house would have way overvalued it if they had bought it recently.
AFTER Remodel - This project is nearing completion and the exterior is looking great! The Mediterranean style has been cleaned up for a more modern look with smooth, white stucco, slimmer columns, light, linear stonework and high contrast windows, trim and roof.
AFTER REMODEL - This exterior remodel is nearing completion, with a new garage door yet to come. The white stucco, light, natural stonework and high contrast trim, windows, and roof give this Mediterranean style home a more modern look.
New Stucco And More!
Not only did they do new windows, roof, rework the front elevation, put in new big sliding doors in the side and back of the house, but they went in with all new smooth stucco. Their existing stucco was really rough and very builder standard for the area.
Smooth stucco is much more up to date and so fresh looking these days. Since they were doing so much work on the exterior anyway, they decided to go all in and redo that finish as well.
New exterior stucco on Mediterranean style house remodel.
Evaluate the exterior for possible modifications you would want to make.
I have looked at houses and known immediately I could never buy that house because major work on overall style would have to occur for me to like it. That’s major work that would cost dollars that the investment in that house couldn’t handle.
If you’re buying a new house and you want to do some drastic design changes to the exterior elevations, it might be best to pass on that house, unless you are getting it super cheap and have a lot of money to spend.
3) An Addition for more Square footage
It’s a great house, great location, only minor updates are desired, but you need more space and want to add on. Is it worth it?
This is the sure fire way to increase your property value, add square footage, but it isn’t always a good option.
Here are two examples where adding on was a good option, but this is normally not the case.
Project 1 - I have a project I designed a few years ago that’s under construction, and this home was purchased at such a good price is so well located, that the homeowner has added even more to the scope now.
They’re adding rooms on the second floor and pushing out an exterior wall to create more square footage.
In this case, the property value can handle any of those improvements and they don’t really have to worry about over-building for the neighborhood.
Project 2 - My house is pretty well maxed out with remodeling. I’ve added as much value as I can over the years, without overdoing it for my neighborhood.
The only way we can really add value here now and not go over the neighborhood values, is to add square footage.
There really isn’t a way to do that on my property and adding on for a small square footage amount, usually isn’t worth the money. (Typically if you add-on to a house by changing the roof line and moving exterior walls out, you need to add a significant amount of square footage for that expense to make sense.)
So, we took the 3rd bay of my garage that’s in the back section (with no access to the driveway, it wasn’t really ever used as a real garage), and we turned it into my new office of about 175 sf.
3rd bay of my garage that we renovated to become my new office.
Wall partition going up with sheetrock removed for new electrical and insulation in my new office space.
Here, since we incorporated space already captured under the roof, it was an easy add. We had electrical, insulation, and HVAC updates done and have gotten the necessary permitting to have this count as additional square footage.
In this case, we have added value to our house around the amount of $25,000, by increasing square footage.
With our expenditure for this remodel at around $10,000, we actually made money on the remodel, if we were to sell today.
Not only that, but this bonus space we created is a real treat and would be highly desirable for many buyers.
My new home office, as I started to move in.
My new home office
If the square footage available in the house you are looking at is less than you need and you want to add on, consider the overall expense and how much square footage will be gained to figure if this is a viable option for you or not.
3 Main Considerations For NOT Buying That House
That careful evaluation of property value and expense for getting the house just the way you want is a bit of a tedious balance. Remodeling can easily snowball, as it is so much fun and really exciting to make a house perfectly suited to you.
Three reasons NOT buy that house and embark on a big remodel if you don’t want to over-build for your neighborhood are:
If the basic layout of the house is just wrong and it would require lots of money to fix.
If the exterior would require expensive new updates so that you would be happy with it.
If you want an addition that is a rather pricey remodel cost and you’re not creating enough square footage to increase the value of the home to cover the cost.
It helps to go into the project fully understanding possible scope and costs, before you buy a house that isn’t quite right for you.