11 Home Renovations: Projects that Boosts Your Albuquerque Home’s Resale Value the Most
(Transcript Snippet): “Tego:
Okay, Tracy 11 home renovation projects that boost the resale value. The most, this was a story in money magazine, money.com. However, they had pulled all this data from a survey done by the realtor. So national association of realtors and going through it, it, it was it was some interesting things, you know, we’ve, we’ve talked about this many times in the past, Tracy, and there’s always things like new front door, right? You get like 120% of your investment. You know, if you’ve got an old, ugly looking trashed out front door are redoing. It is a good thing, but there’s a few things that were on this one, Tracy, that, that made perfect sense to me, but I hadn’t really considered before. And one of them was refinishing your wood floors.
Tracy:
It’s interesting because that was the top one, one in two are wood flooring, right. And in New Mexico, we hardly see wood at flooring. You know, the UNM area. We have some of the beautiful old wood floors, but
Tego:
I’ve got a house that we’re remodeling right now that has beautiful old Oakwood Oakwood floors from the 1950s, it was covered with sot and dirt and grim. And they, I just saw a photo of the, the guy sent me a photo just yesterday. I haven’t been over there and they sanded it and it’s, it’s beautiful.
Tracy:
Yeah. Beautiful wood floors. But you know, in our market, that’s uncommon, but flooring in general. So yes, wood floors, but flooring in general is one of the more affordable things you can do to really spruce up your house. Right. Yeah. And so even if it’s just carpet new carpet
Tego:
Yeah. And the, and the products that are out out there now for flooring are pretty amazing. If you have, you know, walked through like a store, like floor and decor and all the different types of oh my gosh. Vinyls and
Tracy:
Well, the luxury vinyl.
Tego:
Yeah, exactly. That’s
Tracy:
What, I mean, looks like a wood or, but it’s a, a vinyl very durable, more cost effective, easier to put down. What are some of the other home improvement projects for return on investment?
Tego:
Yeah. For return on investment. If you look at interior projects wood flooring, we talked about that insulation upgrade. They’re saying an insulation upgrade, you get a hundred percent return now in New Mexico, again, that’s gonna depend
Tracy:
Closet renovation, Tigo closet.
Tego:
Yeah. You know, what’s interesting about that. I’m, I’m gonna go to another chart here in a second, Tracy. But closet renovation, these are return on investment. Now, some of these like closet res renovation, they’re saying you only get 83 cents on every dollar you spend, but
Tracy:
Oh boy. A nice new closet. Yeah.
Tego:
Well look at the next thing. The joy score.
Tracy:
Oh, good. Joyce go for interior model projects.
Tego:
Yes. Yes. So kitchen remodels, they’re saying you get 75 cents on the dollar bathroom, 71 cents on the dollar invested kitchen.
Tracy:
Just upgrade, not complete renovation, 67 cents on the dollar.
Tego:
Yeah. And, and I think, you know, you gotta remember all these things are relative. If you’ve got a pretty nice kitchen already, obviously throwing, you know, good money at it doesn’t make any sense. But if you’ve got an old tired trashed out kitchen, yeah. You’re gonna get a much better return on that. Right. Right.
Tracy:
Right. Well, I’m more interested in getting to the joy score for interior modeling projects.
Tego:
I like this. So, so again, this is
Tracy:
Lot of tens on that list.
Tego:
National association of realtors did this in conjunction with like the remodeling association. And so they have this thing, they call the joy score. Like what projects bring you the most joy. And you know, I, the first one on the list is in, in paint the interior of the home. And I was like
Tracy:
Entire interior.
Tego:
Of course it is.
Tracy:
I mean, paint one interior room is a 10.
Tego:
Yeah. Well, because its it’s a relatively easy project. I will say it could be done really, really poorly and you’ll lose money. So if you’re gonna paint, watch em, YouTube videos. So when Tigo, we seen some really awful paint jobs
Tracy:
When Tigo and I were dating, I told them I was happy to help with renovation projects. I can pound a nail in or whatever use a saw, happy to do it. Loved working side by side with my dad on projects. But I told him I would never paint.
Tego:
And a week later I had are in my, my house at the time helping me paint.
Tracy:
Yeah. So I’ve done a lot of painting, even though I said I would never do that. So interesting. A lot of these joy score for interior projects are very high. One of the ones that’s towards the bottom of the list at 8.2 mm-hmm <affirmative> for joy score is adding a new bathroom. And that really is this me because I would think if you’re in a, a house maybe in the near Northeast Heights and you have a three bedroom, one bath house adding another bathroom would be a 10,
Tego:
You know? Yeah. And, and, and again, I think it all, it’s this whole thing it’s relative. It’s where you starting from. Do you have one bathroom or do you already have two bathrooms? Right? So it, it depends. Yeah. The renovation, I wanna go back to that. The joy score was 10. So you know, basically a 10 out 10, we just did a closet renovation. That’s why we’re we’re we’re that’s why we’re smirking. We’re chuckling here in it.
Tracy:
It did make me happy. It was
Tego:
A 10. Yeah. I think, I think it was 11 outta 10. Yeah. Yeah. It, it really, really it’s pretty cool. So yeah, so go through these, you know, painting home office, hardwood floors, we’ve talked about that closet renovation, insulation at a conversion. We don’t have a lot of that here. Kitchen renovation. That was almost a 10 for joy score kitchen upgrade. It was a, almost a 10 as
Tracy:
Well. A, well a bathroom renovation. 9.6. Yeah. Yeah.
Tego:
It’s interest. See, I think
Tracy:
A laundry room 9.5. I would think if your laundry is in your garage right now, or you don’t have one, getting a laundry area would be an 11, right? Yeah, no, I, you know, that’s one of the things I value most when I talk about how, you know, like after college and my first homes or living in apartments, the two things that I just would not wanna go back to is no LA interior laundry and a garage. I just love the garage and laundry. Right.
Tego:
So it’s interesting if we go to the exterior projects and we look at cost recovery roofing is number one, which roofing, isn’t really an upgrade. It’s really just maintenance. Speaking of maintenance, we just talked about asphalt and driveways and all that, you know, again, it’s just one of those things that just adds to it. And then I do know when, when you know, people are looking at homes, one of the things at least I know I look at one of the first things I look at, especially if it’s an investment project is how’s the roof. Right.
Tracy:
For sure. And, and if it’s a pitched shingle, it’s pretty easy to see how’s the roof. Yeah. If it’s, if it’s flat, it’s hidden getting up there and looking at the roof would be pretty important.
Tego:
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it, it’s interesting. I think the, the, again, the, from the joy score standpoint, the number one thing for exterior was painting well where it was painting for interior also. So right.
Tracy:
Think about how easy that can change the, the tone of what a house looks like. Right?
Tego:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I thought that was a anyway. That was an interesting story.