If you have a house and decide to make improvements, which of these two options should you choose?
- Building a rustic one-room cabin in the back yard complete with stone fire place all authentically aged to the point of including rusty tools hanging from the outside wall: tiling the basement with idyllic hunting scenes in various spaces; building a “shower” down there that is lacking a door and is accross the hallway from another room with nothing but a toilet; filling spaces with extra big sinks and with cabinetry with lots of a “Western” them involving fake wood and hugely visible black metal hinges.
- Buying a dishwater; getting dual sinks to replace the single one; replacing metal locker style cabinets with others that look decent and are actually large enough to hold kitchen objects adding to the two square feet of counter space already there; finishing a basement that other people might be able to use.
I know it is a tough choice, but when you think of all the thousands of dollars you will be spending and then what is at stake when you try to sell the house, it would be a good idea to work through this issue.
Here’s a rule off the top of my head. When you think about what to do with your house, consider what would be advisable if you needed to rent it to someone else.
Totally unrelated to real estate, but I wanted you to know that not everyone in the Reformed world thinks you’re a heretic. I just gave your book on Mark good press at:
http://christrex.blogspot.com/
Thanks for your work. When can we expect another book out?
Reminds me of my mom and dad’s current house, only yours is more extreme: the previous owner was a bricklayer, so he finished the basement by bricking up the walls halfway (instead of paneling all the way down) and building in planters at various strategic locations around the rec room. (At least he didn’t try to install a barbecue down there.) And then he went on to demonstrate that as an electrician, he was quite the accomplished bricklayer, by wiring about 67 light fixtures to an innumerable number of switches, with no logic in either the wiring itself, or in how the fixtures relate to the switches from the user’s point of view.
It didn’t stop my parents buying the place as a retirement spot, but then the rec room gets used only when family comes to visit, and they knew that’s how it would be. When it comes time to sell that house, anyone who is fussy about having a house the way they want it, rather than simply “acceptable for our needs,” is going to turn right around and walk out when they get down the stairs — unless their budget and energy level allows for ripping out hundreds of square feet of brick, or unless they really like interior brick. On the other hand, at least these choices seem to have been made in addition to making the house generally habitable and functional otherwise — the kitchens and bathrooms were generally good though my parents did update a few things when they moved in, and so forth. The mere idea of spending the time that guy must have spent on all that brick though….amazing.
Thanks Gregory!
I think, Pentamom, is that we don’t realize the real price of home ownership. While we may not be directly renting, not many of us can afford a home with extraneous income. The investment aspect of the house and property has to be kept in mind.