Question about house remodel and appraised value.

[ldo]

most neighborhoods have a price point--and once you hit it, you will rarely go much above that--ex., houses in our area for about the same sq ft, age, etc. go for $400K +/- $15K. Even if you had a finished basement, better appliances, granite, newer carpet, etc., most sell within $15K of each other. We had a finished basement, new carpet, screened porch with high end outdoor cook space, etc. and ours sold for only $10K more than our neighbor who only shampooed his 10 year old carpet, had a very sloped yard, and unfinished basement.
Exterior repairs most be done to safeguard your house--dry rot is not good. So, siding sounds like a must, then windows, then kitchen. But, do not expect to get back what you put in. for kitchen, I would do the least expensive for the best bang of your buck--ex--don't change layout. good luck--the housing market is still rough out there. Elaine

 

[bettymae1121]

Just a thought, but if you're doing the siding anyway, you might be able to cut some of the cost on the windows by replacing your odd sized windows with standard sized ones. You don't have to replace with the exact size because your redoing the siding in any case. Your dinky small windows can be made bigger and your oversided windows can be made smaller (making smaller windows is a bit more work as you'd have to patch drywall in and repaint, but it's usually not that big a deal).

 

[HHSTigerFan]

Just a thought, but if you're doing the siding anyway, you might be able to cut some of the cost on the windows by replacing your odd sized windows with standard sized ones. You don't have to replace with the exact size because your redoing the siding in any case. Your dinky small windows can be made bigger and your oversided windows can be made smaller (making smaller windows is a bit more work as you'd have to patch drywall in and repaint, but it's usually not that big a deal).

We can probably do that with 1 window, 2 of the other 3 odd sized windows are on the front of the house which is stone, the 3rd one is in the sided part, but the contractor told us for what we would save in window costs we would spend on extra labor..

Hoping to be able to shop around for windows, see what the costs look like if we get away from the Andersens, Pellas etc..

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Do you ever watch HGTV and DIY network? Ten Grand In Your Hand and Designed to Sell come to mind. Lots of shows that can show you little ways to improve your house without breaking the bank. If you can do some of the work yourselves it will be a win-win situation - as long as you do it right, lol. (We've done the same work you describe, and more, ourselves over the past several years.) If you do have to use a contractor, look at lots of different ones. Ideally, find one who both does a good job and charges reasonable rates. There are some out there now that will do a crappy job and charge you an astronomical amount to boot.

Good luck to you.