Homeowners are presented with a never-ending dilemma on how to best allocate their next home improvement dollar. Generally we have two broad spending options: visible cosmetic changes, or invisible functional improvements.
Most homes will require a healthy mix of both types of improvements. However your personal bias can easily lead to an imbalance and overspending in one category at the expense of the other, and this can cost you.
What Buyers Expect
Cosmetic and functional spending are both important. Rarely will you find eager home buyers that love your furnace, rock-solid foundation, lawn sprinkler system, and shiny water heater. Invisible essentials like these are expected at a minimum, and all in working order.
What Buyers Want
The average home buyer is drawn in by the curb appeal; drooling over granite countertops, stainless appliances, spa-like master baths and contemporary decor. People are naturally attracted to properties that they would be proud to own and happily entertain company in.
Balancing Rookie Home Buyer Spending
We’ve spent an absolute fortune on our first house. With the rubber-stamp of a building inspector hand-picked by our real estate agent we dove into homeowner DIY bliss. All those hours watching HGTV could finally be put to practical use as we proceeded to facelift just about every room.
Three years later we’re still going, but along the way we’ve had to pay more attention and money to the invisible issues. It seems that our 15-year-old house decided that it needed a new roof and HVAC system last year, plus a laundry list of major upgrades prior to that. Had we planned for these major expenses we may have throttled back the cosmetic updates to a more sustainable pace. Some people pay utilize payday loans to secure sufficient home improvement capital.
What Landlords and Renters Want
The truth is that we need this house to be in great functional shape as we’re renting it out later this year. Hopefully this means fewer service calls. Also, the cosmetic improvements were equally necessary and will help to secure good tenants, quickly, for a fair price. That’s the way we’ve balanced our visible vs. invisible improvement spending and only time will tell as to whether our decisions are justified.
Take Our Survey
Your values will largely depend on your pespective as either a home buyer, investor, or tenant. Please take a few seconds to let us know what you think. Choose the option on the rating scale that best describes your home improvement spending preference. I look forward to sharing the results with you in an upcoming post.
Thanks for participating!
I’d like to do more cosmetic stuff but the budget is pretty well consumed by keeping up on functional items. Our house is 13 years old and I’m hoping the roof can make it another two years to get to that fifteen year mark.
When forced one way or the other I think it’s wise to take care of the functional systems in the house first. The roof for example can destroy your walls, flooring and electrical system if it leaks badly enough.
My answer is mostly functional too. If I ever have extra money, I’ll patch the parking lot, but the roof is a lot higher on the priority list.
I’m a renter, and I find that functional improvements mean the most to me. I just want things that work properly, and perhaps appliances that reduce my utility bills. I like cosmetic improvements here and there, but the functional aspects are more of a factor to determine if I stay or go.
We live in a 100 year old home, we are always walking the line between function and cosmetic. For the most part we save up to do these DIY projects. We have made the mistake of taking out a loan to have our house painted, we paid it off quickly. I only semi-regret it, it’s nice to have it done but it ended up costing us more in the long run.
Functional always wins out in my book. Although, I visit my brothers’ homes and their tendency to go with the cosmetic sure does look nice (matching colors, themes, etc.).
Our landlord had to pay for water Heater and AC units lately. It was together more than 15 grand. The rent for the whole year is around that. He didn’t make any money this year and had to pay association, tax and maintenance fees on tops of that.
I want it to be both cosmetic and functional. I have tons of ideas for our house.
More of a functional kinda guy! We have a kids room that’s pink and we don’t have girls! I need to repaint it, but that can wait!
Home improvement timing is always tricky. For our last house, we made a bunch of improvements in the months before we sold. We spent the same amount of money as we would have if we made the improvements right away. The only difference is that we didn’t get to enjoy them.
For us, the upgrades were both. Our house needed cosmetic and functional work so we tried to balance. We also didn’t want to do too much cosmetic work and price ourselves out of the neighborhood and then not be able to sell. For instance, granite countertops would have been a waste in our house and anyone looking at houses in our neighborhood doesn’t expect them. There was no sense in spending the money.
I have tended to be more of a fan of substative changes and repairs, as opposed to the cosmetic variety. However, when selling, it’s important to keep in mind that some buyers get anchored in their first impressions. I recall a real estate agent about a decade ago telling me that pretty much all builders had to do what put in some hardwood floors, stainless appliances, and granite countertops, and a condo development would get a lot of interest.
My wife and I constantly have to remind ourselves not to get too crazy with the home improvements. From a financial perspective, there are so many upgrades that make absolutely no sense. But as I’m often reminded, not everything in life is about a money investment. You’ve also got to consider quality of life and happiness. As long as you are making these changes in moderation and at reasonable prices, I say go ahead.
Not a homeowner yet, but feel I’m more functional. Wouldn’t be DIY as I’m all thumbs!
I’d have to think that you would do the functional first and leave the cosmetic improvements for later.
Thanks for sharing the post here. Keep up the good work. All the best.