Home Improvement
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Does Remodeling Pay Off? |
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Each year, Realtor Magazine partners with Remodeling Magazine to deliver a Remodeling Cost vs. Value Report which analyzes the average cost recouped for a variety of home improvement projects. The bottom line of this year's report seems to be that the best place to invest your remodeling dollars is on exterior improvements. However, the thing to notice first is that none of the projects are shown to return the total amount of money invested. As a result, I recommend that my clients carefully consider engaging in these sorts of projects for re-sale purposes. Unless you will experience some interim enjoyment from the upgrade, it is likely not worth investing the money in the project. Here's an overview of the top percentage returns on projects in the South-Atlantic region --- which includes Virginia:
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Garage Prevalence |
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On the air yesterday, we had some questions about garages --- are most houses being built with them these days, are most buyers looking for them, etc. Here are some numbers to answer those questions . . . Garages have become a more frequent occurrence over time. Looking at sales during the past 12 months in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, here's what we get:
Of late, the larger the home being built, the more likely it will have a garage. Looking at sales during the past 36 months, of homes built since 2000, in all of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, here's what we get:
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A Great Time For Home Improvements! |
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As reported today in the Daily News Record, the number of building permits has dropped by roughly 16% in Rockingham County. As Jenny Jones points out, this reflects what has been going on for the past year nationally --- both with building permits and the number of homes sold. David Milstead, of Milstead Construction, also makes a great point that there are still plenty of buyers for mid-priced homes, but upper-end home buyers seem to have disappeared lately. One additional reason for this, is that many of our market's high end buyers were relocating or retiring from larger markets, selling high-priced homes in those markets, and buying high-priced homes in our market. With several of those markets slowing down, the rate of high end buyers entering our market from outside has certainly slowed in the last 12-18 months. With every economic turn (for better or for worse), there exists an opportunity. The current opportunity is for hiring a contractor to do a home improvement project. Over the past few years, this was a tough task --- with the huge demand for new construction housing, it was difficult to find someone to build an addition, or a deck, or to remodel a kitchen, etc. All that has changed --- look in the classifieds section of the Daily News Record and you'll see many contractors and builders seeking customers both to build homes or do home improvement projects. There are lots of options, and I imagine you would be able to obtain multiple, competitive bids. | |
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Scott Rogers
Funkhouser Real
Estate Group
540-578-0102
scott@funkhousergroup.com
Licensed in the
Commonwealth of Virginia
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