Update Your Home with Bathroom and Kitchen Renovations
New Jersey is known for its classic home style, and it is not unusual to find homes that are over 100 years old on the same street as new construction. While classic home exteriors may not have changed much over the last century, and paint and decorating style can do a lot to keep the living areas of an older home current, nothing dates a home quite as much as out-of-date kitchens and bathrooms. In addition to looking out-of-date, these rooms can be more difficult to use. Older kitchens may not have modern appliances or the counter space people need for cooking and entertaining. Older bathrooms may have electrical outlets that are incompatible with modern electronics, cramped showers or bathtubs, or plumbing that is incompatible with modern fixtures.
Despite the drawbacks of out-of-date kitchens and bathrooms, many homeowners shy away from kitchen and bathroom renovations because of the expense associated with them. We understand this concern. Bathroom and minor kitchen remodels both average around $20,000, which is a significant expenditure for most homeowners. However, if you plan on being in your house a while, these expenses become insignificant when compared to the increase in quality of life. For example, getting the ability to have a permanent dishwasher installed in your kitchen or doubling your cabinet or counter space makes a huge difference in your kitchen’s usability. Expanding an old-fashioned sink so that you have vanity space can transform your bathroom’s practical usability. For long-term residents, these daily improvements in usability quickly justify the expense of a renovation.
Those looking to sell their homes soon may be worried that they will not realize a financial boon from their renovations. It is common knowledge that a homeowner rarely recovers the entire cost of a renovation in a home sale. However, while New Jersey homeowners may be disappointed to find out that they probably will not recover all of the costs of their planned renovations, but only recover about 59% of the costs of a bathroom remodel and 76% of the costs of a minor kitchen remodel, what many homeowners do not realize is that older homes without renovations may not even sell in today’s market. After all, if you are a buyer looking to purchase a home, would you choose to purchase one that needs major renovations to be up-to-date? Even if a home does eventually sale, even a single month’s worth of carrying costs can literally be the difference between partially and completely recouping the cost of a well-planned renovation. For that reason alone, even homeowners who plan to sell their homes in the not-so-distant future should consider kitchen and bathroom renovations.
At NJ Home Builder, we understand that bathroom and kitchen renovations are a major expense and that you want to ensure that you are getting, not just high-quality work, but also increasing the value of your home. We are new jersey experts at designing remodels that maximize both your resale value and your increase in quality-of-life.