Any tips for significant home renovations/organization/inspiration?

[hillview]

How do you decide when it's worth it to fix stuff and sell v. just cut your losses and sell?

I would first make a spreadsheet of the items you want to do and what each is likely to cost -- if you need to make a range with a column for low end and another column for high end costs. Add the columns up and you will have the cost (or range of costs) for the work you need to do, add at least 20% to each column (it is ALWAYS more expensive). Then get a RE agent to recommend what to put your house on the market for (as is). THEN look at houses you would want to purchase. Then you can do a cost benefit analysis.

[legaleagle]

I would first make a spreadsheet of the items you want to do and what each is likely to cost -- if you need to make a range with a column for low end and another column for high end costs. Add the columns up and you will have the cost (or range of costs) for the work you need to do, add at least 20% to each column (it is ALWAYS more expensive). Then get a RE agent to recommend what to put your house on the market for (as is). THEN look at houses you would want to purchase. Then you can do a cost benefit analysis.

100% this. Personally, I would move if possible in your situation - so many projects on your list, a small house and you're home all the time, 3 kids. Renovation is always more costly & takes longer than you anticipate. Moving would be much less stressful overall IMO.

[khm]

Find a realtor who also does rehab. We have several in our TINY area. They will be able to see the potential and the rough costs. They'd be able to guide you with the minimum that buyers would snap up, and what it will cost to get it to where you want it to be to stay.

I'm all for Joanna Gaines-ing the heck out of a joint, but it really sounds like you need more square feet as the top priority. Three kids, homeschooling, etc. Making a space more aesthetically appealing isn't going to help that.

Not even to mention that you have to LIVE through these upgrades/repairs.

[SnuggleBuggles]

It's one of those cases where moving seems to be the most daunting but the pay off in the end will be a lot greater! Once you have to pack stuff up to renovate, the idea of simply moving gets a lot easier to swallow (as someone going through a renovation at the moment).

[roobee]

I would move too.

Our family of 4 had lived in a 1200 sqft home for 13 years for a number of reasons (bought shortly before the real estate crash so we never had much equity, I stayed at home with the kids so we didn't have much money to fix and maintain things, and then worked part time including a lot of weekends so no time to fix or maintain things).

I could never keep a handle on having our home presentable because we had so little room and that was really overwhelming for me. In addition, we lived in an area with very poor schools and a lot of crime. Every time I pulled up to our house and it was still standing I cursed under my breath and wondered why the stupid thing hadn't just burned down.

Due to finances and so much deferred maintenance I thought we we going to be stuck there forever. I had my kids in good schools nearby and learned to accept some of the crime (that honestly was completely unacceptable).

In 2016 a bunch of friends started moving and I started thinking that would be a possibility for us, or we at least had to try something. Maybe we could live in an apartment and rent out our house? Then I found a larger house with a pool for sale in a better school zone. The house was well maintained but had decor,and appliances, straight from the 70's. A pool is a plus for our family but not really desirable in our area so the house was priced accordingly.

After talking with a real estate agent and mortgage broker we learned the house fit our modest budget (our annual gross is less than $100k) and we were able to purchase it and keep our old house as a rental. The financing and what we were approved for was surprising. Crazy, really.

Our new house is twice the square footage, twice the bedrooms, twice the bathrooms, has an in ground pool and is in a safe neighborhood with good schools. My house is clean and taken care of and our whole family is so much happier. We had less than $15000 down and our mortgage is only $200 more per month. We fixed a few things up at our old place and have been renting it out for the last 18 months which is better for us financially.

Please at least look into moving! I remember how helpless I felt in our old situation and it's a terrible feeling. I remember sitting in my therapist's office and coming to the realization that my living environment was seriously affecting a lot of aspects of my life.

My old neighbor just started a large (probably 20k plus) kitchen renovation and ran into asbestos, putting her family out of their home for a week, and at the end of it they'll still live in a small house with bad schools and some pretty significant crime. I feel bad for them. I had been wanting to share our journey but didn't because I guess it's not polite to talk finances. Anyway this is probably a massive overshare but it's really important to me to offer some hope because I will never forget the hopeless feelings I used to have related to our previous living situation.


Sent from my LG-H811 using Tapatalk

[niccig]

I would first make a spreadsheet of the items you want to do and what each is likely to cost -- if you need to make a range with a column for low end and another column for high end costs. Add the columns up and you will have the cost (or range of costs) for the work you need to do, add at least 20% to each column (it is ALWAYS more expensive). Then get a RE agent to recommend what to put your house on the market for (as is). THEN look at houses you would want to purchase. Then you can do a cost benefit analysis.

Yes to the above. You need to consider what you could sell for and what it would cost to get house ready to sell, moving costs, then look where you can buy, how much would that mortgage be, what's the property taxes etc.

Our neighbor's sister is a realtor and she walked through our house and told me what would be needed to list it. We had been looking at what our house could sell for, so had an idea of what we'd get. We're limited because of school districts here. To get a better school district we would have to move much further out and have much much longer commute for DH and I. Yes the house would be bigger, but the commute would kill us. We could move to area about 15 mins away, high school option is slightly better (still in same school district we are now), but house would be smaller for more money and would need updating. Plus, we can apply for DS to get into that school.

We decided to renovate, as renovation plan increased value of house as redid floor plan to give us a 3rd bedroom that's a master suite, and we didn't overdo it for our area - now in the updated 3 bedroom category rather than dated 2 bedroom category. We also like where we live. We like our neighborhood and while we both commute about 30 mins to work, it's convenient to the freeways (in SoCal, so traffic is always an issue). We can apply for DS to go to that "better" high school or to a magnet school. Plus our property taxes are on our purchase price 13 years ago and not on market value. If we sold and bought a new house, our property tax would increase as new house would be more.

So there's lots to consider, and your situation will be different to someone else - you homeschool so school options are not something you need to consider. Maybe you can get bigger house for not much more if you change location. Staying put was better for us as increased value of house because we got an extra bedroom, and didn't increase our property taxes if bought new house.