Ask the remodeler: Weighing return on investment vs. marketability of home remodels

The following is a reader response to a recent article about cost versus value in home remodels is from Nadine Krasnow CRS of Falmouth Fine Properties:

Thanks for your column every week, I enjoy it very much! I do disagree, however, with Sunday’s column on remodeling ROI [Return on Investment] — not with your nicely researched numbers, but because your analysis ignored the critical component of marketability.

A home with no bathroom on the bedroom floor is going to be VERY difficult to sell, and so the ultimate selling price will be at the very bottom of the market.

This seller should eliminate a bedroom to create a “Jack and Jill” bathroom on the second floor, with access from each of the bedrooms, a toilet and sink for each bedroom, and a tub/shower in the middle.

I doubt there are statistics to prove this, but after 47 years in the real estate business (in Newton and Cape Cod), I’ll say with confidence that this seller will net a significant amount more in his eventual selling price if there is a bathroom on the bedroom floor. Well worth doing, in my opinion.

Nadine Krasnow

Nadine, thank you for that thoughtful response to the March 8 question about cost versus value when remodeling a home to put up for sale. The fact that for the most part, we agree with each other’s points but disagree on the approach helps illustrate the conundrum that home sellers face when getting a home ready for sale.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that a bathroom on the bedroom level is a huge plus and something most buyers would want to see. However, this particular reader wanted to know the cost versus the value. Putting a bathroom on the second floor where there is no existing bathroom is a very expensive endeavor, and the likelihood of recouping that investment at sale is not good. Will the home sell faster and for more money than without that bathroom? Yes. Will the owner recoup that investment at sale? That is very debatable and the carefully researched data by the Journal of Light Construction says no, they will not.

So, the question for the seller becomes, do they want to go through the agony of a very invasive remodel that could cost upwards of $100,000 to sell the home faster, but only get $60,000-$75,000 of that investment back? It is not a black-and-white question, and the cost versus value or return on investment should be carefully considered.

Another angle to all this is the possibility that a potential buyer may have very different tastes and may wish that you didn’t do all that work that they now have to pay for and then wind up remodeling the bathroom themselves. Kitchen and bathroom needs can vary greatly depending on the buyer. Investing a great deal of money and putting personal touches into such design-centric areas of the home is not always going to have the wow factor we all hope for.

The bottom line to all this is that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for what remodeling should be done to a house prior to a sale. A seller with a large amount of equity who needs a sale to go through as quickly as possible in order to purchase another coveted piece of property could be fine with losing some amount of money on a remodel to push the sale through. Another seller may have inherited a home from a relative and would not be as motivated to put much — if any — money into the property to make the sale. These two examples are on either end of the spectrum, and there are far more sellers in between that need to navigate the cost versus value versus marketability. As always, consult with the professionals — both realtors and qualified contractors — to see what best fits your situation.

Mark Philben is the project development manager at Charlie Allen Renovations in Cambridge. Send your questions to [email protected]. Questions are subject to editing. Subscribe to the Globe’s free real estate newsletter — our weekly digest on buying, selling, and design — at Boston.com/address-newsletter.