Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Home Improvement - Where To Start?

Here’s What I Did In My House… 

Our backyard when I purchased the house. Old bricks
and rotting wood were under all those leaves!
When I bought my house in 2008 it needed a fair amount of work. It was a foreclosure and the bank had done the minimal amount of work needed to sell the house. The basement was completely gutted from flooding, the bathrooms and kitchen were all original to the house (and UGLY), and the backyard had a 9 foot petrified rose bush (no joke), among other problems.

My first priority was finishing the basement and updating the master bath. The basement was an obvious place to start and the master bath was a more affordable (and just as necessary) update than the kitchen. I was able to secure a 203k loan that gave me the cash I needed to get these projects completed within the first 6 weeks of home ownership. These projects alone significantly increased the value of my home and also allowed me to get cash flow out of my house because I was able to rent out the upstairs rooms and live in my basement. If you are comfortable with doing that and are looking for a
way to manage your mortgage this is definitely something to consider. I’ll write a blog post about my experiences soon!

The transformation after many hours and dollars!
Once those projects were done I didn’t have any more wiggle room in the budget to take on any other major projects. Remember, I was about to propose to Sarah at the time so I had to save my pennies to buy her ring. But I still had an ugly kitchen that my girlfriend hated, white walls in every area of my house, and a jungle/junkyard of a backyard. Some of my friends may recall fondly when I emailed asking for help. I had a lengthy to do list that I was hoping to knock out in a weekend by bribing them with pizza and beer. While we didn’t even come close to completing my list, we were able to get the kitchen cabinets painted and clean out the backyard so we had a clean slate to work from. Sarah and I continued to work on the yard for the next year and it’s now one of our favorite “areas” of our house. Over the next 3 years we were able to renovate our smaller bathrooms ourselves (with the assistance of my awesome plumber and a few friends) which also saved us money while increasing our home’s value.

When you’re thinking about major home renovations you need to ask yourself why you’re doing it.  Are you planning to sell in the near future? Then how you proceed will be dictated by what buyers are looking for and how to get the best return on investment. Are you planning to stay in your home for a long time and just want to enjoy a new kitchen/bath/patio? Then your decisions will be dictated by your own personal preferences. If you ever do plan to sell however, it’s always a good idea to contact your realtor about your renovation plans to get his or her feedback about the ROI for your specific plans. There’s nothing more disappointing than spending a ton of money on a beautiful kitchen only to realize the ROI in your specific neighborhood is only half of what you spent. Here is an informative article to read if you are considering any renovations and want to know if they will provide good ROI.

Stay tuned to future blog posts on this subject! After 7 years in our house we are taking on the total kitchen renovation in January. Subscribe to my blog (on your right) or "like" our facebook page to keep up to date with future blogs!


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