How do you determine if it pays to remodel a master bathroom?

Question

How do you determine how much (if at all) master bathroom remodeling to do in order to make money on the investment?

Flippers and remodelers typically remodel the bathrooms in their rehabs, correct? Then how come those "costs vs value" charts typically show a bathroom remodel as averaging only 58-65% return on investment? (as shown on this chart: http://www.remodeling.hw.net/cost-vs-value/2016/middle-atlantic/) I know these are just averages, but they would have to be low by over 35% for anyone to make any money by remodeling the bathrooms, according to these figures! Just wondering if you all have any insight into this. Are those ROI charts way off? How dated or "broken" does a bathroom have to be before you should invest in improving it?

(Sorry about the large type and mixed up formatting---I can't figure out how to shrink it back to normal size and not sure how it got so big in the first place!)

Here is why I am asking: I am trying to fix up my own home, of 23 years, to sell it this summer and am trying to think about it as a  business investment or "flip". ( I would love to eventually try some house flipping, so I am sort of thinking about this like practice, LOL! ) I am trying to determine if it would pay to do a more major remodel of our master bathroom (The house was built in 1987, btw.)  The vanities were in bad shape, so we have already bought some upgraded vanities with real marble* tops and new faucets, but not sure if we should also do a major remodel to replace the dated 1980's floor and wall tile, "Roman" whirlpool tub ("bone" colored), "bone" colored toilet, and acrylic shower stall. The current layout is  very awkward and is a poor use of space, but could be tremendously improved by just swapping the tub and shower locations/orientations, which I imagine would drive potential costs up a lot. We had several realtors through the house to give us some pre-sale, fix-up suggestions, and one realtor thought we should also replace the floor tile, along with the vanities, but, without improving the other things, I'm afraid it would be just throwing good money after bad.  So how do you determine when, and how much, master bathroom remodeling to do in order to make money?

(Btw, fwiw, I do have an architecture background from years ago (back before kids) and have already managed about 5 various home improvement projects on my own home here over the years!)

( * Just FYI, Home Depot now has real marble vanity tops in stock for unbelievably great prices--not carrara, but a type of marble called Arabescato Venato, which has both gray and beige and/or brown veining, so it can work with older beige and almond/bone colored tile, (like mine) too! If you buy one, though, make sure to take off the top and check it out before you take it home--being natural, the veining patterns vary considerably from box to box! HTH someone! )

Russell Brazil · Answer

@Phyllis E. Repairing the front steps and adding some curb appeal, that is something Id consider much more in the realm of getting your house ready to sell as opposed to investing in it.  In the $400k price range, I tell a homeowner to expect to spend $1,000-$2,000 just preparing the home for sale. On the front steps, I wouldnt spend more than a few hundred, but I would try to make it look better. Some other common things to get it ready to sell are I would be painting over any harsh colors (Pinks, Purples, Aqua), if it is the spring time adding some flowers with color, having the place professionally cleaned. Simple low cost things that will help your house sell faster.

In PG county, a lot of flips are occurring in Hyattsville, Mt Ranier, ...but Ive seen some more flips moving out towards Bowie, and into Suitland, Ft Washington. I generally dont like the area around Suitland...because a flip is going to take a long time to sell there. Generally along the DC border on the Eastern Ave Border, not the Southern Ave Border is places good to flip.

I wish I had talked about this a bit more when I was on the podcast, but the thought escaped me at the time about where to flip and not. Not every location is good for flipping.  But if someone does want to flip they need to focus on where the price spread between rehabbed and nonrehabbed homes is largest, or at least large enough to flip. By and large our wealthy counties, Montgomery, Howard, Fairfax, Arlington counties do not offer that price spread while DC and PG county does. Parts of Anne Arundel do...but they also have a longer days on market which can increase your carrying costs. DC you will literally sell the flip in days, and PG county...usually 1-2 weeks.

Phyllis E. · Answer

Thanks, Mindy! I actually did buy some new vanities, tops and faucets (I have two in my master bathroom!) from Home Depot! The shower stall is in good condition, (and is white "fake" tile --goes with my "white and bone" color scheme idea!) as it is newer (we had to replace the original tiled one years ago because they used to put tile directly on regular drywall back in the "good ol' days" -ugh, :-(   ). Right now it has a glass sliding shower door. Do you think a shower curtain would be better?

I see you are in Colorado, which I understand is a very hot market right now!  Ours is just "so, so", unfortunately. Some homes sell quickly, others sit, sometimes for years!

Russell Brazil · Answer

Thanks for the tag @Mindy Jensen. Dunkirk is outside my coverage area, but close enough that I can shed some light on some of the questions asked. @Phyllis E. the reason that something like a bathroom might bring back 65% of the money put into as an average is because of how varied the real estate market is, even in small geographical areas. I dont know Dunkirk very well, but I can give you some good examples from the metro area.  Let's take as a good example the east side of Rockville in zip code 20851. Redoing a bathroom there would cost you about $8,000.  The increase in your sales price on the property would be very close to ZERO.  A house in the northern part of that zip code, in say Burgundy Estates subdivision....a 3/2.5 split level is going to sell for $400-$410 if its in good condition whether it is fully redone or completely dated.  Then lets shoot down to some neighborhoods in DC, take Petworth in 20011.  A bathroom remodel there would probably cost you the same $8,000, maybe $10,000 since you might be using some nicer materials....and will probably return $20,000-$25,000 in increase sales price. So a 200-$250% return on your money. The price different between a 3/2 rowhouse non rehabbed in Petworth will be about $450k, and a fully rehabbed version will be $650-$775k.

Both of these are examples within the same metro area and can show you how these things can have huge swings in just a 10 mile difference.  This is why flipping can be very easy in some places (Gentrifying neighborhoods in DC, PG County along the DC Border) and near impossible in other places (Much of Montgomery County)

I find that the areas that are very very desireable to live in, where you have the top schools in the area, like Rockville, lower Silver Spring, Fairfax, Herndon...basically the wealthy suburbs, the prices in a particular neighborhood will not have a huge variance based on condition...and this is because people buy the house regardless simply for the school district, location, county amenities.  While the areas with bad schools and perhaps some crime issues like the gentryfying neighborhoods in DC...Petworth, Brightwood, Ivy City, Brentwood....will have huge price variations based on the condition of the property.

Now do flips happen in Fairfax and Montgomery County...sure, but in nowhere the same types of numbers that they happen in DC and PG County.

It doesnt really speak to Dunkirk exactly, but I hope it sheds some light on how doing X, like rehabbing a bathroom could have a huge impact in location Y, but no impact in location Z, and thus why you can not really have a rule of thumb that spending A will return B.

Phyllis E. · Answer

Thanks for the  great explanation, Christopher Phillips! I've never heard it explained like that before--about a flip remodel being perceived as "new and unused" and therefore worth more in a buyer's eyes. I guess it is a little like cars--you know how they say that as soon as you drive a new car off of the lot it depreciates $5,000 (or something like that!) Come to think of it, those ROI charts don't specifiy exactly when the remodels they are averaging were done, do they? Perhaps they are averaging in remodels done within the last 5 years, which obviously wouldn't look at all, and might even be slightly outdated by now, given how fast decorating trends change, LOL! Thanks for the pointers. I see that you are a real estate agent, so that is much appreciated!

Account Closed · Answer

Hi Phyllis,

I just read this thread and thought I would add my 2 cents worth.

My wife and I have flipped 11 of our own residences. We have a pretty simple system for determining whether it is worth it or not.

We always run the comps for the area and purchase the house at the low end of what everything else is selling for. We like instant equity. We always look for a house that needs updating and will do a full tilt remodel. Depending on what other properties like ours have in them will help us make decisions on what materials we will put in ours. We are typically in high end homes. Keep in mind it sounds like your house needs updating so for me I would expect to pick it up at the low end.

On the selling end because we have run the comps and know what the market will bear for a fully rehabbed house we can establish a budget around those parameters.

Once you decide what road you are going down here are a couple of tips on how to sell.

We always coach people to declutter their house. No one cares about your nick knacks.

Stage the house with what you have but keep it minimal.

This will help the new buyer visualize their stuff in your house. To much clutter will overwhelm their senses.

Curb appeal is a very important selling point. You only have one shot for that first impression. If your entrance is less than subliminally they will think the rest of the house is in disrepair.

I good first impression will let them be a little more forgiving in the rest of the house.

Phyllis E. · Answer

oops- I didn't even realize that my last post was sent inadvertently before I finished it! I was going to comment, with that last, unfinished sentence, that there is a beautiful McMansion, not too far from us (in very expensive "horse" farm country on the road we take to get up to Annapolis) that has been sitting vacant, with a for sale sign out front, ever since it was built over 10 years ago! We all call it the "mystery" house, because no one can figure out why it would be sitting vacant for so long, without adjusting the price as necessary to sell? That is an example of a real estate investment gone very, very wrong! (Mr. Brazil, or any one else from the area, do you have any idea of the home I am talking about? It is in Lothian (or possibly it has a Harwood address, off Mt. Zion- Marlboro Road?)

Phyllis E. · Answer

Thanks, Steve. Are you doing most of the rehab work yourself in order to get at least 100% ROI? I'm not in a high end market; believe it or not, $400,000 is not high end here (that is why we are moving--too expensive of an area!) The high end market seems to have suffered the most in our area, because there is still so much buildable land and acreage that, as one realtor explained to me, if people are going to spend over $500,000 they figure that they may as well just build themselves a brand new house and get it exactly how they want it!  A lot of those originally over-priced McMansions in my area were built right before the real estate bust, so many of them went into, or are now in,  foreclosure. Sometimes the price per square foot seems ridiculously low, even for a very large home. (I realize that, in general, as the size goes up, the cost per sq. foot usually goes down somewhat.) Maybe Mr. Brazil can comment on this!

There is a McMansion

Phyllis E. · Answer

Thanks once again, Mr. Brazil. Interesting comment about differentiating between "investing" in your home vs getting it ready for sale! I never thought of it that way before. I assume getting it ready for sale means "you aren't going to get more money for your home, but it will help it sell for the average going rate", correct? You are bringing up some very good points. I am going to listen to your BP podcast right now--somehow I must have missed that one! I might start looking at the Bowie area for potential flips--I am comfortable there as it is one of my "shopping districts" I go to frequently (we don't have much in the way of major shopping in Calvert County!) Thanks again for such helpful advice!

Phyllis E. · Answer

Thanks for the insight, Mr. Brazil, especially since you are from the same general area! Wow! That is quite an eye opener!!!  We live in the very northern end of Calvert County, which is still within easy commuting distance to D.C. and Andrews AFB, and we have good schools and a very "family-friendly", low-crime, country lifestyle out here. Most homes are on at least an acre or more.  (We are a very rural to semi-rural county, just south of Anne Arundel County, on the southern part of the western shore of the Chesapeake for those of you not from this area.) So I guess we would fall into the category of not getting an increase in sales price for remodeling the bathroom!  My home would probably sell in the low to mid $400K's, and it is probably a mid-range home in size and quality for this area. We have a lot of newer, larger homes that were built in the area during the  building boom of the 90's-2006, so I guess I thought that an updated bathroom might help. But to tell the truth, in looking at photos of local homes for sale in our price range, not many have really updated bathrooms either, anyway!!  (What about replacing our front concrete walkway, which is badly pitted and cracked, and slopes the wrong way (toward the house) , with a new paver walkway? Would that also not increase value of the home, or is "curb appeal" different?)

Thanks also for the honest info about flips being harder to do profitably in the nicer areas. I have been "tracking"(for information purposes) a few homes that were flips in our county, and I can see what you mean.  I have been looking at auction sites, too, and driving by homes, but haven't really seen any great deals here locally; now you have helped me understand why. Last year, I did read that Prince George's County was one of the most profitable areas to flip homes out of the entire country, but I wasn't sure exactly where, since it is such a huge county. I couldn't understand it, since the school district is not very good (an understatement!) and crime and taxes are high! Are flips more profitable there because the properties in bad condition in PG county go for such a bargain? What areas of the county are "gentrifying?", btw?

Thanks again.

Mindy Jensen · Answer

Oh and one more thing, @Phyllis E.

Since you've lived in it the past 23 years, save every receipt you have for the house, and make a list of any improvements you've done and the cost involved over the last 23 years. The laws have changed, and you have up to $250k in capital gains tax credits if you're single, and $500k if you're married. That means you pay $0 in capital gains taxes when you sell your house. And capital gains is the difference between what you paid for it and what you sell it for, minus any expenses. So save every single receipt you can.

How do you determine if it pays to remodel a master bathroom?

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