Should you upgrade your house to help sell it?

There was a recent Wall Street Journal Article that talked about if you should upgrade your house and if it would be worth doing.  With the way the market is looking right now in a lot of areas throughout the country, it definitely is a dangerous gamble.  There are some pros to it as well as some serious cons that you have to consider.

It should come as no surprise that the remodeling activity peaked in 2006 (Wasn’t that when the housing market peaked) and has slowed down since.  While that may mean your local Home Dept/Lowes is not filled to the brim with people working on a housing project because the owners know that they cannot recoup the expense.

If you are unsure of when you will move and you want to upgrade, what you need to do is worry about what you want in your house.  I have spent far too much time worrying about how much doing this or that will do when selling my house.  The problem is that I know the location of my house will make it hard, which means it will take some time before selling.

As I have talked about here as well, I recently did a minor bathroom upgraded.  Yes, it did cost me a decent chunk of change (Somewhere around $600 or so dollars) but I did it for a few reasons.  The first is because I hated the old bathroom.  If I could have just set the linoleum on fire, I probably would have.

The second and really the big reason that I did it was because I wanted to learn how to do it.  I was lucky enough to have my father in law help me (By help I mean he did it and I watched).  But in the end, I am confident that I can do something similar now.  What that means to me is that in our next house, we can can make some improvements if need be in the long run.  I would also say that it may mean we can but a fixer upper, I don’t know if my wife would necessarily agree with me about that (She doesn’t respect my skills that much).

And the third and final reason is that the work done on the bathroom will eventually help the house sell.  Maybe the price tag won’t be much bigger but it should help with the time on the market (At least I really, really hope so).  And with the location question mark, the sooner it can sell, the better for us if we decide to go down that route.

If you have the ability to do the work yourself and put in the so called sweat equity, my guess is that you will really help improve your house.  That should allow you to sell it quicker and more efficient if you do things the right way.  If you are going to hire someone to do the work, then you may need to really weigh both sides of it.

Would the $20,000 you want to put into your kitchen help the house sell?  And if anything, why do you want to make these major improvements and not even enjoy them yourself?  That is a tough question to answer because every housing situation is different.  That kitchen upgrade may be a perfect compliment to the rest of your house and be able to be the difference to selling the house in one location.  At another place, it may be too fancy for the neighborhood and end up costing far too much in the long run.

The first thing you should consider when thinking about this is when do you want to sell.  Is it next month?  Next year?  Five years from now?  And then think about what you want to do and what would help you sell your house.  If those are on the same page and you have the money to do it, why not go ahead and upgrade things while you live there!