Renovating your Albuquerque home? Useful Tips to Save Time & Money

(Transcript Snippet): “Tracy:

So I really love us to start to go with the best use of time and money when it comes to renovations. It’s really interesting because so I noticed a couple of different Facebook posts or social media posts in the last week and a thread. And it was interesting because Jason pike who’s with Waterstone mortgage. You know, one of the top lenders in the state had posted a picture of a space where he needs his new range or stove range. And he said, he ordered it on January 5th. I believe of 2021. And he’s still waiting for it. So when we’re talking about renovations and what’s the biggest bang for the buck, which we’re going to talk about now, we have to take into consideration the supply chain issue that we’re having right now.

Tego:

And there are a few guys it’s, it’s just about an every industry and everything where there’s some sort of, you know, supply needs some sort of material. There are supply challenges everywhere. And it’s definitely in the, the housing world is definitely in the remodeling world. You know, you go to the home stores and they just don’t have the same type of supplies that they used to. And so when you’re thinking about, you know, upgrading your home, doing some, some stuff, either just for yourself, you’re going to plan on staying in the home, or if you’re getting it ready to sell, and you want to optimize your, your net proceeds from the sale, those things matter. Can you actually get what you need?

Tracy:

So what we are hoping is that before you rip out all of your flooring or your cabinets or your appliances, or your

Tego:

Window lines, garage door,

Tracy:

Garage door, before you start ripping things out, make sure that what you need to replace or to remodel or to upgrade is, and

Tego:

The reason I say garage doors, I’ve heard stories about garage doors and the lead times on garage doors being very, very long. So

Tracy:

Well, we know appliance lead times right now, it can be many months. And Jason, Pike’s one story about that. So let’s talk about what, what renovations are creating the biggest return towards a hundred percent, if you’re going to consider doing some upgrades on your home.

Tego:

So in the current market, everything pretty much is selling even a house it’s in very poor condition is going to sell. Obviously price always matters as well. Right? Right. But, but you know, I always joke. I always say, well, the home price is somewhere between a dollar and $10 million. Right. You know? So I mean everything, every, what do they say? Every a seat anyway, it doesn’t matter. I can’t help you. I know you can’t get inside my brain. The idea is that when you’re getting your home ready to sale, there are certain things that you can should do to actually make it more desirable to buyers in, in, in net you more money from the sale. You know, we did the show a couple of weeks ago, talking about staging and how, yeah. Just cause everything’s selling in this market and it’s a strong sellers market doesn’t mean you should leave money on

Tracy:

The table. Right. And you know, a lot of it doesn’t cost a lot of money to do right from front yard maintenance, front entryway door, the whole curb appeal of your home. Sometimes it’s just getting out a nice blower and trimmer and power washer or whatever, and cleaning things up, maybe refreshing if your door is a painted door, refreshing it. If your trim needs work, you know, some of those things can be not

Tego:

Appeal is still going to make a big difference and, you know, clean, neat, tidy, no deferred maintenance. You’re just going to get more money for the house.

Tracy:

So that was what I was going to say next, neat and clean. So the rest on the inside of the house, if you can’t do anything except clean declutter and just make it sparkle, it’s going to make a huge difference for you on how buyers perceive your home. Right?

Tego:

So Tracy, I’ve got the cost versus value study that the who does this home modelers home remodelers association or something like that every year, they do a study and they look at cost versus value for upgrades and updates to your home. And what are the things that give you the most bang for the buck? And there’s, they actually do have one is they have nationwide, they have mountain region, which we’re in. And then they also do have Albuquerque specific, which I, which I brought out. And you know, some of the things we we look at and go and kind of look at sideways and go, well, I guess so like, you know, vinyl siding, you know, in Albuquerque, right. That’s not really a thing, right? I mean, it, it, there are some, but it’s not much replacing

Tracy:

Vinyl siding. So,

Tego:

So what are some of the big, the big, big takeaways that you see on that list?

Tracy:

The chart tells you replace a cost recoupment. And what’s interesting is nothing is at least a hundred percent. So even if you spend a hundred dollars to do something, nothing you do is going to get you a hundred.

Tego:

And we’re talking about remodels. We’re not talking about, we were just talking about, which is cleaning, painting. Right. You know, just, just deferred maintenance.

Tracy:

Yeah. Talk about kitchens, right. Kitchen remodel. Yeah. You can have a, a couple thousand dollar kitchen remodeled to a $60,000 kitchen remodel, right. From replacing all your cabinets, reorganizing the order of your kitchen, getting new appliances. But you know, sometimes it’s just painting cabinets or cleaning and changing something. That’s not very costly, but they’re saying that kitchen remodel, just a mid range, kitchen remodel, you’re going to get 51% back from that remodel, an upscale remodel, which we know is, you know, somebody putting in commercial grade stainless appliances and maybe new cabinets that have soft, close and dovetail corners. And you know, all of that, it’s only 43% recoup on sale. So it’s not something you would want to do for sale. It’s something you’re going to want to do to live in the home. Right. And enjoy really bothers me. When I see people do a major remodel right before they sell and do all of the things they wanted to have in their house. But then they do it for the next buyer and they didn’t have the chance to enjoy it themselves. Yeah. Oh, I feel so bad. And we know Tracy,

Tego:

That, that remodeling is booming right now. I mean, remodelling has been booming since the beginning of the pandemic and it continues to boom.

Tracy:

And we did our own kitchen remodel during the pandemic, our office right here. That’s right. Because it was closed and we could a master suite up upgrade.

Tego:

Yeah. And, and I think, I, I’m not sure what that was referring to, but I don’t think that’s a big, big one. I mean, the big ones that really jumped out to me, Tracy was garage door replacement. Talk, talk about garage doors. And in one thing I think we need to, to add to this, it depends where you’re starting, right? If you have a nice kitchen and you just don’t like it, or you want to do something different than what it is obviously spending the money to do, it is not going to add value. If it’s a trashed out kitchen with cabinet doors falling off and, you know, scratch cabinets and old cabinets and all that, obviously, you know, it just depends where you start it. Same thing with the garage door. If the garage doors and find condition, maybe it just needs some paint, but if it’s dented up not working right then yeah. You’re going to, you’re going to recruit that garage door is a huge curb appeal

Tracy:

Thing. So one of the other things on the list that jumps out at me is window replacement. And so we see that, you know, there’s a lot of older homes that still have single pane, very hard to use windows. You know, you might get 40 to 50% back if you’re selling the house and you’ve replaced the windows. It’s interesting because when I show houses, typically those older houses, buyers aren’t is in tune with what major upgrades have been done on a house like windows. So some buyers are pretty, pretty attuned to it, but a lot of times it’s more about how does the house feel, smell how clean is it? And they don’t notice the difference between windows. So getting 40 to 50% back on recouping what your cost was. You know, that’s probably in range. It’s interesting though, if you, I was at a house in Rio Rancho a couple of weeks ago, they were thinking of selling and they had spent a lot of money on the, the big doors. So the whole back of the house had those

Tego:

Disappearing doors or whatever they call them. Yeah. Yeah.

Tracy:

And they had spent a lot of money on that and it really made that house pop and shine and beautiful, but I’m not sure. I think they spend about $40,000 on all the windows in the house and those beautiful doors, but you know, that’s a lot of money. Yeah. It’s the wow factor. And yeah. When someone walks in that house, the first thing you saw past the fireplace was this beautiful view to the Sandias when they

Speaker 3:

Might. Yeah. I mean, that’s pretty, that’s pretty impressive.

Tracy:

Probably going to get more than the 40% return on it, but still it was pretty major upgrades. So windows, another thing is roofs, right? It’s another thing where I don’t know buyers, a lot of our roofs, you can’t even see what kind of condition they’re in. Right. You might be able to see cracking parapets, but it’s saying reshingle and pro panel metal roofs will, you’ll get 40 to 50% back on that.

Tego:

Well, [inaudible] roof. The roof’s thing is that’s also a maintenance issue. Right. People think while new roof adds value to the home, no. If the roof was in bad shape and you’re just replacing it, doesn’t really add value to the home. Right. So again, it depends on where you’re starting and where you’re ending for sure.

Tracy:

The, one of the biggest cost recoupments on the list is stone veneer, manufactured stone veneer on, on your house. You know, when you think about it, that’s part of that curb appeal. When you pull up, I noticed it the other day I was in a neighborhood of all these stucco kind of two-story houses drove towards street and the house towards like at the T bad funkshway way. But it was at the T right in front of me and they had added stone veneer on it. And I looked down at well, wow. That house looks very upscale compared to all the rest that I just was in that neighborhood, by it looked gorgeous of that, that really added value to that house. So here it is on paper saying 92% recoupment for that stone veneer.

Tego:

Yeah. It does it that does that pop to a home for sure. As long as everything else is in order with the curb appeal.

Tracy:

Right. So to wrap this up, do you thinking of remodeling, let’s make sure that it’s for you and that the cost makes sense and that the product’s available

Tego:

Remodeling and you’re intending on selling in a, you know, relatively short period of time. We’d be happy to consult and talk about it and just make sure that you’re getting your bang.

Tracy:

Yeah. We’re here for you to say, do that. Don’t do this and make sure that the supplies are available. Yeah.