Some homeowners are looking forward to adding some changes to their home, whether it’s for their own pleasure or because they plan to boost their home’s value for a resale.
But you have to be careful because some home renovations might only hurt your home’s value. So you need to keep in mind that your home isn’t just a source of pride, but also an investment in your family’s future.
1. Lavish lighting fixtures
One common trap when it comes to home improvements is falling in love with unique or lavish light fixtures. There is a psychological phenomenon that happens when people go to a lighting store: they want to pick something exciting and new instead of picking a new addition that will actually match with the big picture.
Plus, trends work against homeowners, because whatever might be in vogue today will look dated 10 years later. It’s better to keep it classy and simple. Fortunately, if you make a bad decision now, you can fix it. Lighting can easily be switched out at a low cost.
2. Too much wallpaper
You have the same drive choosing a wallpaper as you have when you make a new tattoo. You may like it at the moment, it might be cool and in trend, but later you realize it was a decision you enjoyed for a short period of time.
With their patterns and texture, wallpapers can represent an overwhelming design choice for your walls. You have to think it through very well, if not, you might feel your home is smaller than it is in reality. Plus, it’s very hard to remove it. Fresh paint and neutral colors are a better idea.
3. Texture on the ceiling and walls
The same goes for textures on the walls and ceilings. The old popcorn-like texture for the walls that used to be very fashionable in the ’80s is now completely out of style. Simply knowing that a time-consuming project lies ahead might ward off some potential homebuyers, or might give them the opportunity to consider decreasing their offer.
Whatever it is, it’s not good in the long run. Think twice before you decide on a fancy textured painting technique, and instead try playing around with textured wall décor instead. You or the future buyers will have less work to do if they don’t like it.
4. Eccentric tiling underfoot
If you didn’t know this by now, any over-personalized renovation can affect the value of your home, in particular tiling, which requires even more effort and money to replace.
There are many people that freshly purchased their new home and they instantly want to upgrade its floors. Don’t get me wrong, adding tile or wood can really make a difference in a house’s value unless we’re talking about a person who wants the 1950’s diner look and installs black-and-white tile.
5. Too much carpeting (spread like mayonnaise)
In an interview recently took, home remodeling expert Alex Biyevetskiy says that new hardwood floors can increase the sale price of a home by up to 2.5%. In comparison to hardwood and laminate floors, the carpet will show more quick signs of damage. Plus, let’s be honest, colors and textures are generally based on personal preference, someone’s treasure might be someone else’s trash.
6. Bold and bright paint colors
Bold paint colors might not be so pleasing for any potential buyer who might lack a bit of vision. But don’t worry, repainting a room before putting your home on the market is easy to do. Choose neutral colors, which will only help the buyers imagine how they want to transform their future homes.
7. A high-end kitchen (lovely, but no one wants to pay for it)
Some might argue that the kitchen is the heart of a home. Maybe that’s why so many homeowners save up for the kitchen of their dreams. The resale value of a major, high-end kitchen remodel is less than what you’ll invest in it.
In 2020, the national average for a major kitchen remodel was $68,490, but the resale value was only $40,127, according to the “Remodeling” website.
If you want to avoid kitchen renovation mistakes that won’t satisfy you on your investment, try to focus on which parts of your kitchen are most outdated or worn. And even though you’ll have to carry some internal fighting, choose mid-range appliances rather than expensive high-end options.
8. Luxurious bathroom
If you want to upgrade your bathroom it will certainly add value to your home, but it’s easy to exaggerate and take the idea of luxury a little too far. Potential buyers might dislike it because of different remodeling mistakes, like over-personalized finished and over-the-top whirlpool tubs that are difficult to clean and hard to climb into.
9. Taking closets away
The owner of residential agency Silversons, Michele Silverman Bedell, told MarketWatch how she’s seen how removing a closet to make room for another upgrade, like a bedroom, can hurt a home’s resale value. As she says, people really need closets, and sometimes, it’s the first thing they’re interested in when they walk into a room.
10. Converting Space into a Home office
After the pandemic started, too many people started to take into consideration working from home, so there’s a ton of people who adopted the idea of a home office space, to get their job done.
If the new office was formerly a bedroom, it might seem like a good idea, but it’s not. On one hand, you’re removing bedroom furniture, which will not be easy.
Secondly, you will certainly need to add wall outlets and phone jacks(up to $425), install new hardware, which will probably take you somewhere near $3,000, as HomeAdvisor says. But what if a prospective buyer will want to have the bedroom space? You would have done everything for nothing.
11. Combining bedrooms (which means fewer overall)
If you always dreamed of having a huge bedroom, you probably considered by now combining two small bedrooms to create a bigger one. While this is understandable for young couples with no children, or to empty nesters whose children have left the house, it’s a bad move if you don’t plan on staying there forever.
It really doesn’t matter all that much if the bedrooms are smaller, they add value to the home anyway. There are many families that want children to have their own rooms, and they don’t mind if the rooms are smaller. Instead of knocking down walls, you can try using simple tricks to make your bedroom seem bigger.
12. A swimming pool
This might come as a shock to you, but adding a swimming pool to your home won’t necessarily add more value to your home. In fact, as HouseLogic suggests, a swimming pool could increase a home’s value by 7% at most, and only in certain circumstances.
As Davis says, unless you live in an area that’s hot at least six months out of the year, pools generate more problems than you’d think. The only people that might look for a house with a pool are families with kids, so this definitely limits the potential buyers. Because of the cost to build a pool and the maintenance expenses, it’s not worth it.
13. A living space conversion
A fitness lover won’t hesitate a second on transforming his/her garage into a full-time gym. Also, for the parents of a millennial who just decided to live with them, a garage-to-apartment conversion will surely be a money saver.
But future homebuyers won’t agree with that. Why? Because many people(if not literally everybody) will search for houses with a garage, and what they’re looking for won’t be a gym or an extra living space.
They will be looking for a garage to serve its primary purpose of housing cars and storage items. If you still want to transform your garage into a gym or a living space, at least make sure it’s easy to remove the renovations later on.
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