Increase Home Value with an Addition

A home remodel is a well accepted approach to increase home value. Lower to middle range remodels include kitchens and bathrooms which have a higher cost recuperation percentage at resale as opposed to a complete home remodel. The same thought process can be extended to outdoor overhauls like patios. The return on investment of a less ambitious, low-scale project is going to be higher than a major outdoor remodeling project. If you don’t spend much to begin with, it’s much simpler to get that money when you sell the property.

Increase Home Value: The Facts

There is good data to back this up as well. The metrics from Remodeling Mag highlight that a high-end “decked out” 20×20 patio with all the special additions, such as: pergola, fire pit, and modular kitchen unit, only has a return percentage less than 50% in a majority of regions around the US. The only exceptions are in these states, MARYLAND, Georgia, West Virginia, Florida, and the Carolinas, where the return average is just above 50% at about 51.3%. We can only guess that this is because these temperate regions lend themselves to more outdoor time.

By comparison, the National Association of Realtors study finds that a simple 18×16 backyard paver patio (usually with a sand base and dry set mortar over compacted gravel) is about 69%! What this looks like is something like a $7,200 addition recouping $5,000 of the project at sale.

The Valuable Lesson ? 

So, what should you take away from this? Simple, you want to create a basic space instead of a luxury space if getting a return on your property investment is a priority for you. Of course, if making your home more beautiful and enjoying the space that you want to live in is your priority, then you should build out your outdoor space to meet what you want. But for resale, by creating a space that is very customizable for someone else helps to make your home much more resalable.

In addition to your considerations for putting a luxury outdoor space onto your home with hopes to increase your resale value, it is still up to the value that the buyers assign to your property, and it might not match up with the opinions of an appraiser.

Many times, home buyers just want to see potential in the home and property they are looking at; that potential for a future outdoor space of their designing is a big selling point for them. Patios are definitely a less invasive home improvement project than, say, a kitchen or bathroom remodel. When you are doing an outdoor renovation you are still able to live in your home without disruption.