Time was, and not all that long ago, that putting money into your house before putting it on the market paid off at resale.
Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com for your questions if remodeling project will add value to your home.
But the “sluggish housing market continues to push down remodeling return on investment,” Sal Alfano writes in the most recent Cost vs. Value Report issued by Remodeling magazine, with the overall average cost-to-value ratio dropping to 57.7 percent from its peak in 2005 of 86.7 percent.
Even though the cost of remodeling itself has continued to fall, that’s effectively counteracted by a drop in resale values, Alfano said.
Bottom line: There is no guarantee that any improvement will boost the sale price of a house, especially in a real estate market in which even multiple offers typically result only in an amount near or slightly above asking price.
Yes, doing the necessary improvements to a house will help it compete. If two houses are for sale on the same street for the same price and one has a new roof while the other needs one, it’s not hard to figure out which might sell first. But “might” is the operative word in an era when little about the real estate market is a certainty.
New roof or not, a house’s list price must be appropriate for the market to attract buyers, who likely will not only expect leak-free conditions, but also a furnace and air conditioning that work properly.
Read more at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/home/sc-cons-0628-resale-remodel-20120628,0,964470.story
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