Avoid These Money Losing Mistakes When Updating Your Home

As a Nanaimo home owner, we like to think that updating our home will not only add to its value but also let us get back all of the money we put into the updating . . . and hopefully more! The most popular home renovations - updating the kitchen, updating the bathroom and adding an extra room - can potentially return close to all of the money that you invested in these renovations.  On the flip side, there are some home updates that you are almost guaranteed to lose money on. Keeping in mind that more renovations are not necessarily better, here are three home updates that are better left undone: Adding a swimming pool or spa is one of the worst updates that you as a homeowner can make, assuming that when you sell your home you expect to get back the money that you put in. The sad truth is that on average, you will only get about 10% of your money back.  In other words, if you spend $20,000 on a pool, spa and updated landscaping, when it comes time to sell you will have only added about $2,000 to the value of your home. Finishing your basement is almost as bad an update as putting in a swimming pool, assuming that you want to get your money back. Finished basements will on average only give you an ROI (return on investment) of about 20%.  So, if you spend $8,000 updating and finishing your basement you can only expect to increase the value of your home by $1,600. Updating a spare room into a home office generally does not add any value to your home, and in fact could actually make your house harder to sell.  While home offices can usually easily be turned back into bedrooms, prospective buyers have a hard time imagining that third or fourth bedroom that is now an office being converted back into a bedroom. So, the buyer will simply move on to viewing the next home for sale, leaving yours to linger on the market.

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