Upgrades that don’t increase the value of your house

Over recent years, it’s seemed like housing prices have only gone up. So you could be assured that the value of your house would increase over time. Naturally, that would seem like upgrading your house will only increase its value further. With many renovations, this is the case.

However, not all upgrades increase the value of your house. While some renovations almost always increase the value of your house, others don’t do much for the property value.

Upgrades vs Renovations for home value

There’s a difference between making an upgrade and doing a renovation to increase home value. An upgrade is anything that you see as an improvement to a property. This accounts for taste and style. A value-increasing renovation, on the other hand, is a change to the property with the specific goal to make it worth more.

If the goal is to make the home more suitable for you and your family, any upgrade will do. However, there are a few upgrades that often don’t bring in a positive return on investment for the value of your home.

Upgrades that may not have a positive return

While many of these things can improve your quality of life, they often don’t increase your home value enough to be considered an investment.

Removing rooms

Taking out a bedroom to make an enlarged master suite may give you more space, but changes like this tend not to increase the value of your home. Adding a room on the other hand can add value, but it depends on how the room was added. Adding walls to existing plans tends to add more value to your home in NZ, but make sure not to make the rooms too small or it can have the opposite effect.

Solar Panels

Solar panels can be great for the environment and can help keep you off the grid if that’s important to you. However, as of this writing, they don’t usually have a positive return on investment when it comes to your property value in NZ. But over in America they have started to show a net increase, especially when they are highly efficient. This means that eventually the same may be true for New Zealand

Remodelled basements and attics

Fixing up the basement or attic typically doesn’t add as much value as doing remodelling on the main house. Doing these remodels often does help get buyers interested; however, you often don’t recoup the cost for the sale. Of the two, upgrading an attic tends to have a lower ROI than basement remodelling.

Unusual wallpaper or paint

Having custom paint or wallpaper with a unique design can be great to add character, but you run the risk of having potential buyers not liking the style. This in turn means that the value of your property increase like it would if you used standard colours or wallpapering.

Luxury Upgrades

Luxury upgrades tend to have the highest cost but often they don’t increase the value by even half of what it costs to add them. These are things like Wine cellars, swimming pools, and sunrooms. They can call be nice things to have but won’t do much for the value of your home.

How do I increase the value of my house?

If increasing the value of your house is a priority, there are a few things that you can that almost always yield a positive return. These include things like:

• Upgrading appliances and cabinetry
• Moderninsing bathrooms
• Adding or upgrading insluation
• Putting in a Sleepout
• Improving or bulding Decks and Patios
• Meeting Healthy Homes Standards even when not renting the property out

If you’re thinking about selling your house you might be interested in our article How do I get my house ready to go up for sale? Our experienced team can do everything from small projects to whole home renovations. If you’d like some help doing renovations to help increase the value of your house, get in touch today.