When my husband and I moved into our home we didn’t have to do very much to it, except clean. The people we bought it from had “flipped” the house: they bought it a low price and then did a lot of renovating, and then sold it to us for a profit. Our basement is unfinished, however, and we only have one bathroom, so I decided to research what types of renovations would be worthwhile for us to do. We don’t plan to stay in our current home for a long period of time so there is no point for us to make any major improvements unless they will increase the home’s value.
While skimming through Jonathan D. Pond’s book Grow Your Money, I came across some renovation projects that he suggests should recoup about 80% of the costs, but he also mentions that regional and other variations will affect the percentage: