Hardwood Flooring is Among Top Investments for Homeowners
Did you know that not all home renovation projects create more home value than they cost to carry out? That might come as a bit of a surprise. After all, mainstream thinking seems to consider home improvement projects a smart investment.
Americans are proud homeowners who routinely pour over $400 billion a year on home renovations! That’s a lot of cash. It works out to close to $5,000 per year for each one of the American homeowners. And for many of them, these home renovations represent one of the biggest single chunks out of their yearly spending budget.
Investing in Your Home
This level of spending does make sense. Home is far more than a sanctuary. It often represents an investment, a safety net, and a retirement plan. Almost every homeowner wants to take care of their property, keep it in good condition, and periodically spruce things up – whether they’re selling or staying.
It’s natural for homeowners to feel safe investing their money into their homes. Aside from a few renovating purely for personal enjoyment, most of them are expecting to get a healthy return on what they’ve put in.
However, that’s not always the case. It isn’t even the norm!
Most renovations don’t pay off in a selling value high enough to recoup their costs. Not only that, but many renovations are simply bad investments that can lessen a home’s selling power.
So, do you know which projects deliver the best return on investment? It’s a good idea to find out before you start throwing a hammer around. We’ll cover that in a moment, but first, let’s go over what Americans typically choose to put their renovation money into.
What are the Most Common Home Renovation Projects?
According to one home industry outlet, the 10 most popular home renovations are:
- Floors and ceilings
- Plumbing fixtures
- Built-in appliance replacements
- Windows and doors
- Water heaters
- Roofing
- Landscaping and irrigation
- Air conditioning
- Minor bathroom remodeling
- Electrical wiring and safety features
Some of these renovations are cosmetic. Others are to make a home safer, improve its efficiency, make the interior a little more contemporary, or take care of needed repairs.
So, are these the ones that deliver a positive return on investment?
What Renovations Have the Highest ROI?
The National Association of Realtors and the National Association of the Remodeling Industry took a deep dive into the average cost recovery of common exterior and interior home renovation projects. Here’s what they found.
The ROI of Exterior Home Renovation Projects
- Fiberglass front door: 60%
- Steel front door: 63%
- Wood windows: 63%
- Vinyl windows: 67%
- Vinyl siding: 82%
- Fiber cement siding: 86%
- Garage doors: 100%
- Roofing: 100%
The ROI of Interior Home Renovation Projects
- New primary bedroom suite addition: 56%
- New bathroom addition: 63%
- Kitchen upgrade: 67%
- Bathroom renovation: 71%
- Complete kitchen renovation: 75%
- Converting an attic to a living area: 75%
- Closet renovation: 83%
- Converting a basement to a living area: 86%
- Upgrading the insulation: 100%
- New wood flooring: 118%
- Refinishing hardwood flooring: 147%
Where Does the Real Investment Value Lie?
This report isn’t an outlier. Housing industry intelligence consistently shows that only a few home renovation projects are good financial investments.
Many remodeling projects will enhance the quality of life and add to a home’s ambiance, but those generally don’t translate into monetary returns.
Creating a new bedroom might be right for a young family who wants to grow in place, but the next buyer might find it a little too small. A new bathroom addition can quash early morning arguments in a large family, but the next buyer might find it unnecessary or think it’s in an awkward location.
Touching up a home’s exterior doors, windows, and siding can certainly add to the curb appeal, but that isn’t shown to create much ROI.
There are only a handful of home improvement projects proven to bring back at least as much value as they cost. Those are:
- garage doors
- roofing
- insulation
Homeowners who choose to work on the home’s exterior purely for investment purposes are wasting their money unless they need to do a roofing or garage door replacement.
It’s also a pretty good idea to get old insulation replaced – especially since that can lead to improvements in the home’s energy efficiency.
However, there’s one way to go for homeowners who want to invest in a home renovation that will make them some money. It’s a classic hardwood floor.
Hardwood Flooring and ROI
The National Association of Realtor’s Remodeling Impact Study found that hardwood flooring refinishing and installation renovations both resulted in a positive ROI.
A hardwood flooring refinishing project that costs $3,400 to complete was estimated to bring in around $5,000. That’s 174% ROI. A new wood flooring installation project that costs around $5,500 to complete was estimated to bring in around $6,500 in recovered costs, putting this ROI at 118%.
Once the flooring was complete, virtually every single homeowner wanted to spend more time at home and took more enjoyment in their dwelling space.
There’s always more than money at stake when it comes to our homes and living spaces. The true home investment enhances the livability while adding to its valuation.
That’s the real allure of hardwood flooring. It’s a beautiful and durable way to improve a home’s value and elevate your living space.
How Much Does Hardwoord Flooring Cost?
Hardwood flooring has always been perceived as a premium home product. Unfortunately, its product and service pricing often reflects that. That’s left many homeowners choosing to stick with second or third-rate flooring options. But Footprints Floors has found a way to make flooring more affordable with its mobile showroom. By cutting out the costs of retail and staffing, the flooring franchise has streamlined the buying process and passed the savings on to customers.
Footprints Floors provides quality hardwood flooring installations, repairs, and refinishing without any crazy markups or premium fees. The business doesn’t stock inventory and tack on a fee to compensate for storage costs. And the home-based franchises don’t have expensive real estate overhead costs that need to recoup every month. Footprints Floors is a win-win for both franchise owners and customers. Want to know more? Visit the franchise website for details.