Tuesday, August 14, 2018

You may not be able to tell a book by its cover, but consumers looking to maximize spending value in spot home improvement projects should focus on exactly that: the exterior "cover" of their home.

A new report from Remodeling Magazine shows the highest ROI homeowners can squeeze out of specific improvements comes from replacing or installing a steel entry door, your garage door, or installing manufactured stone veneer, either as an accent or across the full exterior of a home.

The report says these three projects, done individually, return just over 91 percent of cost for the entry door; 97 percent for the stone veneer installation; and a whopping 98.3 percent for the garage door change out.
On the flip side, the report points out that some more traditional and much larger scale improvements simply don't seem to warrant the cost unless they are absolutely necessary for quality of life, health, safety, or resale purposes.

The Remodeling Magazine's annual Cost Vs. Value Report puts the ROI on a backyard patio installation at just 47.6 percent; a Master Suite addition ROI at just over 48 percent; and a major upscale kitchen remodeling at 53.5 percent or mid range kitchen facelift ROI at 59 percent.

The irony in those last numbers is that size matters - because the report projects an ROI on what it classifies as a "minor kitchen remodel" at 81.1 percent.

This year’s report highlights a slight decline, to 56.8 percent in 2017 from 57.9 percent in 2016, in the average payback for 20 common professional remodeling projects in 100 major markets. That’s mainly because the cost of doing those projects went up for all 20, while values rose for only about two-thirds of them.

Experts at Remodeling expect those trends to continue through 2018, because the 3 percent to 5 percent gains in cost that are reported were calculated before fall hurricanes and fires began fueling what one building-products distributor calls “a freight train of extraordinary demand” — demand anticipated to keep elevating the prices for many building materials.

The report also telegraphs an even greater shortage of skilled workers in disaster-struck markets as those workers struggle to fix up their own homes and employers feel pressure to respond with pay hikes.

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