How To Decide Whether To Remodel Your Home or Move Bankrate.com Caret RightMain Menu Mortgage Mortgages Financing a home purchase Refinancing your existing loan Finding the right lender Additional Resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Bank Banking Compare Accounts Use calculators Get advice Bank reviews Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Credit Card Credit cards Compare by category Compare by credit needed Compare by issuer Get advice Looking for the perfect credit card? Narrow your search with CardMatch Caret RightMain Menu Loan Loans Personal Loans Student Loans Auto Loans Loan calculators Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Invest Investing Best of Brokerages and robo-advisors Learn the basics Additional resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Home Equity Home equity Get the best rates Lender reviews Use calculators Knowledge base Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Loan Home Improvement Real estate Selling a home Buying a home Finding the right agent Additional resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Insurance Insurance Car insurance Homeowners insurance Other insurance Company reviews Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Retirement Retirement Retirement plans & accounts Learn the basics Retirement calculators Additional resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Advertiser Disclosure
Advertiser Disclosure
We are an independent, advertising-supported comparison service. Our goal is to help you make smarter financial decisions by providing you with interactive tools and financial calculators, publishing original and objective content, by enabling you to conduct research and compare information for free - so that you can make financial decisions with confidence.
Bankrate has partnerships with issuers including, but not limited to, American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi and Discover. How We Make Money
The offers that appear on this site are from companies that compensate us. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site, including, for example, the order in which they may appear within the listing categories. But this compensation does not influence the information we publish, or the reviews that you see on this site. We do not include the universe of companies or financial offers that may be available to you. SHARE: Ken Hively/Getty Images October 17, 2018 Jeffrey Steele Bankrate logo The Bankrate promise
At Bankrate we strive to help you make smarter financial decisions. While we adhere to strict editorial integrity, this post may contain references to products from our partners. Here's an explanation for how we make money. Bankrate logo The Bankrate promise
Founded in 1976, Bankrate has a long track record of helping people make smart financial choices. We’ve maintained this reputation for over four decades by demystifying the financial decision-making process and giving people confidence in which actions to take next. Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. All of our content is authored by and edited by , who ensure everything we publish is objective, accurate and trustworthy. Buying or selling a home is one of the biggest financial decisions an individual will ever make. Our real estate reporters and editors focus on educating consumers about this life-changing transaction and how to navigate the complex and ever-changing housing market. From finding an agent to closing and beyond, our goal is to help you feel confident that you're making the best, and smartest, real estate deal possible. Bankrate logo Editorial integrity
Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. Key Principles
We value your trust. Our mission is to provide readers with accurate and unbiased information, and we have editorial standards in place to ensure that happens. Our editors and reporters thoroughly fact-check editorial content to ensure the information you’re reading is accurate. We maintain a firewall between our advertisers and our editorial team. Our editorial team does not receive direct compensation from our advertisers. Editorial Independence
Bankrate’s editorial team writes on behalf of YOU – the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether you’re reading an article or a review, you can trust that you’re getting credible and dependable information. Bankrate logo How we make money
You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey. Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers. We’re transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money. Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service. You’ve been in your house for a while and are still fond of the place. But it’s no longer exactly what you need or want. So, do you put the home up for sale and move out, or upgrade and settle in for the long haul? To answer that question, you’ll have to think about your emotional attachment to the house, whether renovating will bring a good return on your investment and . These and other factors will help you make your choice. Here’s what experts believe are the essential issues when deciding whether to remodel your current place and stay put, or buy a different home and move out. 1 Is your home in your heart
Your emotions will have a lot of say in whether you stay or go. “Think honestly about your relationship with your neighbors and how you feel about your location and the surrounding area,” says Fred Wilson, a principal with Morgante-Wilson Architects in Evanston, Illinois. “If you have a strong connection to the neighborhood and emotional ties to your home, renovating may be the right answer.” Wilson’s firm estimates that 70 percent of homeowners in the remodel-or-move quandary ultimately decide to stay put and make changes to their house. A residential architect may envision upgrade possibilities you may not see and help you get maximum functionality out of the home you already have. You might to pay for the improvements. 2 Can you budget realistically
Realistic budget planning is critical when deciding whether to make your current home work or look for another one. Budgeting accurately is essential if you do decide to renovate. “A lot of homeowners don’t know exactly what they want,” says Prashanth Pathy, an agent with Keller Williams Realty in Chicago. “Say they have $50,000 and the contractor says he can do it for that. But then their wishes change, they want different materials, it doesn’t come out as they imagined — and that’s where the budget gets blown up.” 3 More room or more rooms
Many homeowners base their decision to sell on the need for more space. However, a smarter layout that adds one more room but not more square footage can help some homeowners avoid moving, says Doug Perlson, New York City-based founder and CEO of real estate brokerage RealDirect. “A spacious three-bedroom home can often be reconfigured to four bedrooms and allow a family to have a more efficient layout without needing to leave the home they love,” he says. “We recommend laying out your floor plan with a designer and seeing if a reconfiguration could make sense. It is often much less disruptive and expensive than a move, and may solve your problems.” If you can’t find a spot for a new room? “Maybe it is time to sell,” he says. 4 Will only a move be enough
Does your current home have what you consider to be a serious problem? It could be neighbors you can’t tolerate, a not-so-great school district or a cramped physical setting — including home and yard — that will never meet the needs of your growing family. If that’s the case, you really have just one choice: Move. But maybe the issue is that you essentially can’t afford the home you currently have, so a downward rather than upward move is necessary. This is fairly common. The 2016 from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation found that more than half (53 percent) of Americans struggle to make housing payments and have had to make sacrifices or trade-offs to cover those costs. 5 How long will a renovation take
Many people overlook the fact that renovation involves “a serious, long-term commitment in time and energy,” says Pathy of Keller Williams. “They have to get their head around the process — time being the first and foremost consideration.” He’s not kidding. A kitchen remodel involving new countertops, cabinets, appliances and floors can stretch on for three to six months. If ductwork, plumbing or wiring has to be addressed, the job could take longer. A can require two or three months, while a room addition can take a month or two. Pathy says you have to be ready to be very patient. “It’s very difficult to live in something that’s being renovated.” 6 Will you earn back the upfront costs
Before opting to remodel or sell, try to determine what return on investment you’ll see on either option. So says Brian Davis, who has bought, renovated, leased, managed and sold many homes and is director of education for Spark Rental. If upgrading, “What’s the average return on investment for the renovations you’re considering?” he asks. Most home upgrades do not pay for themselves in the form of a higher eventual sale price. Some renovations manage to recover 80 to 90 percent of their costs, while others barely cover half their expenses. If you’re thinking of listing your current home and buying another one somewhere else, ask yourself whether you’ll be in the new place long enough to recoup the costs of taking out a new mortgage and moving. Davis says it has traditionally taken seven years to earn back those upfront costs. 7 Would you be over-improving
Weighing against renovation is the risk you’ll “over-improve” your home compared with others on the block. An over-improved home won’t sell for as much in its location as it would in a neighborhood with similar houses, says Kevin Lawton, a real estate agent at Coldwell Banker Schiavone & Associates in Yardville, New Jersey. “When you are in a neighborhood that has starter homes and smaller homes, adding a large addition or doing an extensive renovation may not yield the return one would expect,” he says. With one of Lawton’s listings, sellers had added a large, handsome fifth bedroom suite to the first floor. Buyers passed on the house for smaller ones in the same development, and the house lingered unsold even after the sellers chopped $30,000 off the price. SHARE: Jeffrey Steele Related Articles