Money-Wasting Mistakes to Avoid While Renovating a Home

When it comes to renovating a home, everyone wants to do it in a way that’s financially savvy and intelligent. Unfortunately, this is often a far cry from what happens. Unless you’ve renovated many homes before, it’s likely that you’re going to make mistakes, and that these errors might cost money.

Fortunately, you can route around most of these by being aware of the most common mistakes people make when renovating a home, and doing what you can to avoid them.

Renovating a Home? Avoid These 6 Mistakes

Whether you’re tearing the home down to the studs or simply swapping out an old stairwell, avoid these six mistakes:

1. Starting A Project That Won’t Pay For Itself

Renovating a home isn’t the time to take on impulsive projects or projects without any real reasoning behind them. With this in mind, be sure you’re not starting a project that won’t eventually pay for itself by improving the value of your home.

Simple things, like refinishing the hardwood floors in a home, will cost a few thousand dollars, but you’ll get that money back when you sell the home. Be sure only to take on projects like this during your renovation process.

2. Not Cutting Corners Where You Can

While there’s something to be said for insisting on high-quality, most people don’t have the budget needed to go as high-quality as they want in every facet. With this in mind, take advantage of the areas where you can save money by opting for less expensive finishings or materials. The look will likely be the same, and the cost will be far less.

3. Overestimating Your Budget

When you start the renovation, you need to have a fixed budget. From there, you need to honor that budget throughout the entire process. If you don’t, you risk dipping into funds that you’ve set aside for other things, like a child’s college education. When you resist overestimating your budget, you’ll enjoy a happier and more reasonable remodel.

4. Not Focusing Your Resources

While a closet renovation might seem like a very good idea, the standard cost for a fix like this is $3,500, and you’ll only get 57% of that back when you sell the home. During a renovation, it’s easy to get distracted by all the things you could do, without focusing on the things you should do.

5. Not Shopping Around

Quotes and prices can vary widely from one source to another. To ensure you’re getting the best deal possible, shop around. This will help you save money on critical services and re-allocate the funds you’ve saved to other, more critical aspects of your project.

6. Not Setting A Timeline

Without a firm timeline, a renovation can stretch way beyond the point of being reasonable. To save yourself time and money, set a timeline for your renovation and stick to it. If things start to stretch too long, evaluate alternate approaches to keep things in check.

Renovating a Home Without Destroying Your Budget

While renovating a home can be difficult, these six smart tips can help you stay on-time and on budget, while also keeping your stress levels in check.