Home Renovations - What's Better for Resale Value?

I am a realtor and can tell you overwhelmingly the people that I've worked with who have seen a washer/dryer set in the kitchen automatically say "ewww". If it's far enough away from a food prep area *and* a separate room it would be an improvement....but seriously laundry with dirty towels, underwear, etc needs to separate and removed from a kitchen. Keep the pantry and leave the laundry in the basement.

Also, here is what you can expect to recoup from costs of remodeling:
http://www.remodeling.hw.net/2009/costvsvalue/national.aspx

Happy selling!!

I wouldn't want to get rid of a pantry, but one reason we bought the house we have know if because the laundry room is right off the kitchen...I love having a separate laundry room and I love having it upstairs. Is there any place that you could add in another pantry?

Good luck trying to decide!!

I would say that depends on how access is to your basement and what the area looks like. I personally think a walk-in pantry is a huge selling point and a space that is extremely valuable. But I also really enjoy our upstairs laundry room. Personally, I was completely uninterested in homes where the laundry was part of the guest bath. I might feel the same turn-off if it was right in the kitchen.

There is also the cost of plumbing and electrical as well as venting you need to consider.

I would try to make the basement area where you do laundry exceptionally clean and well-lit. We had a basement laundry in one home that was just an overall unpleasant place to be. We remodeled the space for about $300 and the buyer said it was a selling point for our home.

We painted EVERYTHING - the rafters, the concrete walls, and the concrete floors. That really took care of that musty basement smell and there wasnt a cobweb in sight. Having a paint sprayer was a real bonus. Beware of stark white or dark colors. Make it fun and airy. I remember the white we used was SherwinWilliams Casa Blanca. We accented with accessories that were light green and a little orange and blue.

We painted pegboard and hung it over furring strips on the unfinished walls instead of drywall. I installed hooks to hold buckets and baskets to hold my supplies and a rod to hang up clothes. It was also a great place to store tools, etc. We already had a white melamine storage armoir that we put in there and added clothes hampers and an area rug. We considered installing a fold-down ironing board but didnt get that far. An important part was we pulled out the one flourescent light and installed track lighting. It transformed it from a dark damp space to a really cool and hip corner of the basement.

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There are several problems with moving the laundry to the first floor. First you have to worry about drainage. If the washer were to over flow or If the water hose was to burst you would need to have a containment area under the washer along with a drain. Next you have to look at the benefits versus the cost. Do you have enough space in your kitchen to afford loosing the pantry. Most people would want the pantry versus the move of the laundry. People are being more thrifty in their spending and buying in bulk and need a space to put it. In my opinion I would rather keep the pantry and have a nice set up for laundry in the basement. Work on improving the area in the basement where you do laundry. Make sure you have shelves, cabinets, and outlets that are in a good location for doing ironing. Maybe even a built in ironing board. That would be the better value.

Usually is is kitchen and bathroom remodeling that increases home value.

As far as the laundry room... and moving it near the kitchen... well that sounds like a major renovation. You will have to think about all the plumbing in the home... you can't just relocate a laundry or kitchen or bathroom (for example) just anywhere... because the plumbing/pipes in a home are all usually in the walls/foundations etc. So... to put a laundry room somewhere else (where there might not be any plumbing).... you need to make sure you have plumbing there... too....and know how to relocate the dryer exhaust as well... usually it is installed in the walls... then it has to "exit" somewhere. Or the laundry room will need to be located where it can logistically be easily hooked up to the existing plumbing plan in the home. So something to think about.

IF the kitchen and the laundry room are located on the same side of the home... then probably the plumbing pipes & rooms are situated vertically from each other, on their respective floors. Usually, this is usual.

If anything, you will need to have an Architect give you an estimate. Or a contractor... who is not a "designer" per say.

Don't do it yourself.

I agree with you. I don't think you would recoop any of the costs, in fact, I would prefer to have more pantry space as a homebuyer and your house may take more time to sell if lose it.

Good luck,
S.

wait, clarify, you want to upgrade to sell better?
if yes, wrong idea. it's the buyers market, and no matter how much you bought it for, you'll never get that money back, if you spend more, count that as lost money.
we sold our home in maryland(beautiful colonial, 8 years old, full finished basement, tile, granite countertops etc). we had added the alarm system and built a fireplace (real one). we lost that and another 60K form the original price we had bought it for.
just sell as is, try to get it off your hands any way you can. what works is have the yard cleaned up really well, arrange furniture to have it well-lit. but spending more it won't help.
good luck

keep the pantry. we bought a house with laundry hook ups on the first floor (an upgrade) and we are not using them.

** EDIT - AGREE with other's - spruce your current laundry. We did that with the home we sold prior to buying this one and it was great. Fresh paint and a brighter light made a huge difference. I told my husband we should have done it when we moved in - it was SO MUCH nicer!

jessica

The only help I can offer is to tell you, I would much more prefer to have a large pantry then an upstairs laundry. When I purchased my home the washer and dryer were in the kitchen, I hated it and moved it to the basement.

Suggestion - you may just want to spend some money by improving the laundry area in the basement, things like shelfs/cabinets for detergent, having an area to fold, and a place to hang items.

Good luck.

KEEP THE PANTRY! You can never have too much kitchen storage. Would LOVE to have a pantry in my home. Of course, main floor laundry is great but I would gladly sacrifice main floor laundry for a pantry. (my home has neither :( )

Does the basement have interior access? I can tell you that when we were buying and discovered the laundry was in the basement of a house where the only access was by going outside our realtor turned around and walked out... saying she refused to let us carry our laundry through the rain an snow... and quite frankly, I agreed 100%.

If it has interior access, I would personally leave it. Kitchen space is worth it's weight in gold.

Ditto having 3 realtors come out and give you their take.

I would think leaving the laundry room downstairs but "sprucing" it up a bit, make it as positive as possible seeing how you will have to use it down there...anything to add SQ.FT is the best. I wouldn't take anything away from a kitchen, lots believe it to be the MOST important room of the house.

Keep the pantry and leave the laundry in the basement.

i say leave it where it is & spruce it up

My only advice comes from sharing what has just happened with the sale of our home. We bought a 3100 sq. ft. home in Canton, GA, in September of 2008. The housing market was already in the slump and we thought it was at the bottom. However, only 15 months later due to my dh getting a promotion with his company, we had to move. This also meant that we had to sell our house. Luckily for us, his company does have a buy-out policy that we were grandfathered into. They require an extensive process to evaluate the current market value of the home. They had 2 appraisers come out and give an appraisal based on a sell within 120 days. Do I want my home to sit on the market forever just so I can sell it for a certain price? No, I want our home sold as quickly as possible to reduce our loss (mortgage, insurance, utilities, etc.). So, I completely understand the 120 day criteria. Both appraisals came back at roughly the same $. There is a loss of $53,500 on the home that we spent only 15 months in. It was a new construction, and basically still brand new. What we paid $203,500 for, someone has just purchased for $154,500 with $4,500 towards closing costs! Our house was on the market for about 3 weeks with a starting list price of $179,900 (prior to the appraisals coming in). The relocation policy only allows you to have a list price of 105% of the appraisal value, so after the appraisals came in the list price dropped to $160, 125.
I share all of this to say don't throw any more money into the home unless you are going to stay there until after the market stabilizes, and who knows when that will happen.
Good luck!

It looks like your responses are overwhelmingly in favor of keep the pantry. I agree. I also like the ideas from Colleen T about making the laundry area nicer. :)