Mark Adams Team

How Do You Decide?

Once we started seriously considering moving, there was an obvious question we had to answer.

Would it make more sense to renovate the house we already owned or move?

It sounds like a simple question, but it really wasn’t.

We liked our house. We liked the location. It was larger than the house we were considering buying, and there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with it.

But as we talked about what we wanted from our next home, we realized that renovating isn’t always about replacing something that’s worn out or broken.

Sometimes it’s about trying to make a house fit a life that has changed.

What Would We Change If We Stayed?

That’s where we started.

If we were going to stay in our house for several more years, what would we want to change?

I had always wanted green kitchen cabinets. I wanted different countertops. I wanted lighter floors, especially after discovering just how much our dog Bunny and dark floors don’t belong in the same house.

I wanted a dedicated office. I had been working in the living room since the pandemic. Multiple interruptions and I do not mix well and I was being interrupted all day long. 

But there was a problem.

Our kitchen was perfectly fine.

The cabinets were in good condition. The countertops were in good condition. There wasn’t a compelling reason to tear everything out other than the fact that I wanted something different.

It felt wasteful to spend a substantial amount of money replacing things that didn’t actually need replacing.

Then there were things that weren’t as easy to change or impossible to change.

Some Problems Can’t Be Fixed With New Finishes

Pictures of our beautiful Sleepy Hollow home (above).

When we bought our previous house, we didn’t know a pandemic was coming.

Like a lot of people, the way we worked changed dramatically. Working from home became part of our everyday lives, and I didn’t have a dedicated office. We had an incredible mid-century modern home in Sleepy Hollow. Adding a room onto our home, which had a very distinct style and feel, would have compromised its architectural integrity. 

We could repaint the kitchen, dining room and living room.

We could replace the floors.

We could install new countertops.

Creating the right additional room was a different matter. I loved the look of our home. Adding a room made sense but didn’t make sense. It would ruin the whole aesthetic of the open floor plan and beautiful wall of windows. I felt I owed it to our home to keep it as true to the original design as possible.

The more we thought about it, the more we realized there is an important distinction when you’re deciding whether to renovate or move:

Are you trying to change what your house looks like, or are you trying to change how your house works?

Cosmetic changes can transform a home.

Changing the basic layout, adding rooms, getting a designer or architect involved can be considerably more complicated and expensive.

And sometimes, you simply can’t change them at all…or you don’t want to.

The Backyard Mattered More Than We Thought

The house we were considering had another feature that would be almost impossible to create at our existing home.

A shaded backyard.

I love being outside and working in the yard, but I also burn easily. Having a backyard where I could actually spend time outside without sitting in direct sun had become increasingly important to me.

Could we plant trees at our existing house? Sure.

Could we create a mature, shaded backyard anytime soon? Not really.

It was another reminder that when you’re comparing renovating versus moving, you have to look beyond the house itself.

The lot matters. The neighborhood matters. The location matters.

Those are three things no renovation budget can change.

Then We Looked at the Ongoing Costs

There was another factor that wasn’t nearly as exciting as green cabinets or new floors.

Property taxes.

We lived in an area with relatively high property taxes. Our taxes had almost tripled from when we first moved to Sleepy Hollow to when we considered moving. We could afford them, but we started questioning whether that’s where we wanted to continue spending our money.

A renovation wouldn’t change that. 

Moving could.

That’s something homeowners sometimes overlook when comparing the cost of renovating with the cost of moving.

The purchase price isn’t the only number that matters.

Property taxes, utilities, insurance, maintenance, HOA fees and the cost of taking care of a larger property can all affect what a home really costs you over time.

A smaller house that fits your life better can sometimes give you more financial flexibility, even if you spend money renovating it.

The Smaller House Offered More of What We Wanted

This was probably the biggest surprise for us.

The house we were considering was about 700 square feet smaller than the house we owned.

On paper, that sounded like downsizing.

In reality, it didn’t feel that way.

The smaller house had more individual rooms and gave us the opportunity to create a dedicated office. It had the shaded backyard I wanted. It was still convenient to the places we enjoyed going, in fact it was closer to many of the restaurants and stores we frequent.

And because the house needed renovation to suit our taste, suddenly the things that felt wasteful to change in our existing home made sense.

If the floors already needed to be replaced, we could choose the light floors we wanted.

If the kitchen needed updating, I could finally have the green cabinets I’d always wanted.

Instead of spending money trying to make our existing house into something it wasn’t, we could put that money into a house that already had many of the things we couldn’t easily create.

That’s when the decision started becoming clearer.

The living room would become my future office. And, with the addition of a wall, it offered us a bonus we never imagined, and one I personally love. 

Check out the before pictures below of what would become my new office.

So Should You Renovate or Move?

There isn’t one answer that works for everyone.

But if you’re trying to decide, I think it helps to separate the things you can change from the things you can’t.

Ask yourself:

• Do we still like our location?
• Does the layout work for the way we live today?
• Do we have the rooms we actually need?
• Could a renovation realistically solve our biggest complaints?
• Are we changing things because they’re worn out, or simply because our tastes have changed?
• What would the renovation really cost?
• Would we be comfortable living through the renovation?
• What are our ongoing property taxes and ownership costs?
• Does our yard work for the way we want to use it?
• Would moving give us things that renovating simply can’t?

And there’s one more question I’d add after going through this ourselves:

If you had the money you’re considering spending on renovations in your hand today, would you put it into your current house or toward your next one?

That’s a question worth thinking about.

For Us, Moving Won

We didn’t move because we disliked our house.

We moved because another house gave us the opportunity to create something that better fit the way we live today.

Of course, deciding to buy a house that needed renovation and actually living through that renovation turned out to be two very different things.

There were budgets.

There were contractors.

There were surprises – good and bad.

And there were definitely moments when we wondered what we’d gotten ourselves into.

We’ll get to all of that.

But before we could start renovating the new house, we had another job to do.

We had to get our existing home ready to sell.

And after years of helping sellers prepare their homes for the market, we had to take our own advice.

That’s where we’ll pick up next in my next post.

Lisa Adams
Mark Adams & Associates
eXp Realty
office@markadamsteam.com
804-237-8585