Interior Improvements: What’s my Return on Investment (ROI)?

I previously posted about exterior improvements that you should make to your home and what the return on investment is for each item. Now that you have lured in a potential buyer with your fancy exterior, what kind of interior improvements should you do?? Where do you invest your money to get the most bang for your buck??

The highest ROI is actually attic insulation!!

Can anyone guess which two interior areas have the highest ROI?

If you have no idea, then you have not been reading this blog.

These are the same two areas that are always a disaster in the houses that we buy to renovate…….anyone……anyone???

If you guessed kitchens and bathrooms, you are correct!

Attic Insulation <$1500: 108%!!

Shockingly, attic insulation yields the highest return on investment. Where I live it seems we have winter like temperatures 7 months out of the year, so proper insulation can save home owners a bundle on their utility bills. There are many different kinds of insulation. If you know nothing about it, a quick search can be helpful. There are certain ‘R’ ratings that must be used in attic spaces if you are simply installing rolled insulation. If you plan to install it yourself, coat your arms in baby powder or wear long sleeves with gloves to avoid getting itchy.

If you are in a home that you plan to stay in and really want to insulate, you could go with foam insulation. We have never hired out this type of insulation, but I have heard great things about it!

Kitchen: Varied

Major Renovation: 65%

Doing a major kitchen renovation does not yield as high of a return on investment. You will also not get as much back on your renovation investment if you buy the highest end materials after taking it down to the studs. Do you really need to sink 30K into an entire new kitchen with all new cabinets, high end quartz, super expensive backsplash, and a high end appliance package?

You can achieve that same look that you see in magazines for a fraction of the cost. You just need to be willing to roll up your sleeves and put some sweat equity into your home!

Minor Renovation (cosmetics): 93%

Take a real hard look at your kitchen. Are your cabinets still in good shape? Are they just a color or finish that you do not love? Is the hardware out of date? Do you have out of date wallpaper on the walls? Are your countertops a blast from the past? If you said ‘yes’ to any of these questions, these are all things that can easily be fixed!!

Take a look at the pictures below…. only ONE of those kitchens did we completely gut. Do you know which one?? Again, if you are an avid reader of our blog, you will know. 🙂 Either way…keep reading to find out!

  

‘Crappity’ Cabinets

Refinishing cabinets is not difficult, it is just time consuming!!! However, when it comes to interior improvements, painting your cabinets will have a huge impact! The key is in the prep. If your cabinets are wood with a poly finish (looks shiny), you have to sand all the shine off AND into the stain.

Without the proper prep work, your paint will bubble, peel, and piss you off because it looks like crap….leaving you with even ‘crappitier’ cabinets than you started with.

All of the cabinets that we refinished we did in our own basement. Since it is so time consuming to do, we take all the doors and drawer fronts off and work on them after we put the kids to bed. After sanding them, they usually require three coats of paint….some of them 4. UGH! But you know what, the $50 of paint vs. thousands of dollars on all new cabinets is totally worth it! Any ideas which cabinets we did NOT save??

‘Custom Counters’

When it comes to countertops, we are lucky. My dad did counters (and other furniture tops) for a living. If we choose to do laminate, we pick what we like and he installs it for us. He is incredibly meticulous and does amazing work. My brother and I keep telling him he needs to teach us how so that when he is 90 (currently 69), we can take over. Love you, Dad. 🙂

Precision Painting

Paint is paint and I LOVE to paint!! Not to toot my own horn (toot toot!), but I am a great painter and enjoy every minute of it! For those of you who do not excel at painting, buy a good brush! I feel like being a great painter is having a steady hand, but more importantly having a great brush. I prefer a 1.5 inch angle brush for all of my cutting in. If you live near me and need a hand, comment below and we can work something out!

With the right brush, taping is not necessary!

If painting is still not your thing, please hire it out so that it does not look like a child did it. Enough said.

Flooring

In 4 out of 5 houses, we uncovered original floors that we refinished. The cost of refinishing original floors is maybe $250.00 if you do it yourself. Your return on investment by refinishing original floors is well above 100%. It does not cost much, but is a tedious step by step process. I honestly have not helped much with refinishing floors because every time we get a house with original floors, I am pregnant. So I defer to my hubby for all things flooring. 😉

Only in one house did we have to purchase all new floors—house #5. There were so many different kinds of floor and none of them were in great shape. The main floor would have looked very disjointed.

Purchasing all new flooring obviously costs more and the total cost depends on what you select. Flooring has come a long way and it is quite easy to lay. No matter what flooring you purchase, a ‘floor laying kit’ is a MUST. For approximately $15.00, this kit will supply you a tapping block, rubber mallet, and a tapping bar for the edges. You will also need to purchase the appropriate saw blade to cut your floors. Any old blade will splinter your flooring which will look terrible and end up costing you more money. I am thinking a ‘DIY how to lay your own flooring’ will need to be an upcoming post! Cutting ends off is not so serious….it is cutting around walls and vent/register holes that gets tricky. This piece had to fit against a wall, around a corner and a register– took about an hour to measure and cut, but it fit like a glove!

Finishing Touch: Appliances

A decent stainless steel appliance package typically runs us right around $2000. This is a must when flipping houses because unless your buyer has cash, some lenders will not approve the loan without appliances. They will deem the property ‘uninhabitable’.

Depending what kind of kitchen renovation (minor or major) impacts what your ROI will be. Below are all the sexy kitchens that we have purchased over the course of our last five houses.

Including appliances, we did not spend more than $7,000 in any of these houses.

I am 100% sure we EXCEEDED 100% ROI in all of these kitchens.

Kitchen #1

Kitchen #2

Kitchen #3

Kitchen #4

Kitchen #5

We did all 5 of these kitchens combined for less than 30K. BOOM!

Related: Get kitchen ideas here!

Bathrooms: 86.4%

I have to say, I feel like bathrooms bring higher return on investment than 86.4%! The kicker is going to be whether you do the work yourselves or hire it all out. Bathrooms can be intimidating, but they do not have to be. All you have to do is take out everything that is ugly or ridiculous and make it pretty. 😉

We have had some doozy bathrooms in our first five flips. They all turned out great!

I like to keep my bathrooms classic. We never do anything super trendy and I think that yields a higher return on investment. Again, just get rid of all the crazy patterns, materials, wallpaper, and colors from previous decades and you will be well on your way!

We have seen everything from wallpaper, wood grain toilet seats, plumbing not hooked up and draining into the basement, cloth curtains in the shower and oh so much more. Here is a look at the before pics of all the beauties we have overhauled.

Now, does renovating a bathroom need to break the bank?? Again, if you read this blog, you should know the answer is absolutely NOT! Unless you think you need floor to ceiling marble with gold fixtures. *BARF*

Many of these baths were ‘wet’ because they were not vented properly or the tile was not sealed. Many of these bathrooms had to come down to the studs. Does it take rocket science to remove all the ugly out?? Nope. And it does not have to cost you money to do it either. Just grab your favorite sledge or hammer and go to town.

Neglected bathrooms can break the sale of your home. The more you dig in and learn to do, the easier it gets! We have found that many tasks in home renovation are not super difficult, they are just tedious and take time.

Curious how these bathrooms turned out?? Do you think we got our money worth??

Our First Ever Flip

    

House #2

     

Sight Unseen Flip–House #3

Next Door to Flip #1: Flip #4

Most Recently: Flip #5

What do you need to know how to do to make an eyesore bathroomd beautiful and timeless?

Demo, paint, tiling and flooring. I would say we have never spent more than $4,000 on a bathroom! BOOM!

Related: Show me more bathroom ideas!!

 

So there you have your top three interior return on investment areas. What are your biggest success and/or fears when it comes to home improvement projects??