Is remodeling worth it?

Dear Savvy Stacy,

My husband and I are planning on building a home within the next 2 years. I was wondering where I could get the most up-to-date information regarding home values to help decide whether or not to make those additional remodels or add-ons to our home before we sell it. I know you can get more for your house that way, but does it all just balance out in the end? For example, I don’t want to spend $10,000 on our kitchen if we will get only that or less out of it. Please help!!!!!

-Soon To Be Homebuilder in Oklahoma

Dear Homebuilder,

Wow! Now this is a loaded question. There are so many good things for me to talk about. First of all, you probably know that this is a terrible time to sell a home. The industry is crazy slow right now, though it has to turn sooner or later.

Home sales are public information. Here where I am, the home sales are listed each week in the Sunday paper. Now don't confuse this with the assessed value of a home. Assessed values are often less than the true value, though you can find that information for any home at your local assessor's office.

Another great resource is a simple site, www.realtor.com. Here, you can do a "map search" for homes. Enter your zip code, and you can immediately see where homes in your area are for sale and what they're going for. It's kind of a cool interactive map in general.

Now, when you're talking about remodeling and trying to figure out if the investment is work it, I found this great article. She makes some great points. One of the things she mentions is to not overestimate what your home could be worth. This sounds kind of bad, but it makes sense. If the homes in your neighborhood are valued at a certain limit, chances are, you're not going going to get double that for yours, even if you do a ton of work. So if you are thinking of renovating, you want to make sure you're getting the most bang for your buck! I found a great site to help you with that. Check out this Home Sale Maximizer. You'll see that a kitchen is lower in the return, but many realtors recommend it. If your kitchen is the big spot where you need a renovation, then it's probably worth it. But remember, you can do small changes like painting, tile, etc. without doing a full remodel.

I hope that helps you make some decisions. Good luck!