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Remodeling? Get your money's worth

By Times Staff Writer
Published August 6, 2005

What really adds value to your home? Square footage, good bedrooms and bathrooms. And the newer the house, the better.

Following up on 2003 research of the Philadelphia housing market, two professors at Florida State University confirmed that those results were valid in other parts of the country.

The research "seems to indicate that maybe market preferences are more universal than what people always thought," researcher G. Stacy Sirmans said in Remodeling magazine.

The study shows that you can increase the sale price of your home by one-third every time you add 1,000 square feet. Every bathroom beyond one adds 8.7 percent to the price; each additional bedroom, 3.7 percent. Prices decline by 0.8 percent for each year of a home's age.

This isn't a license to add unlimited square footage or dozens of bedrooms to a home, Sirmans said from his office in Tallahassee. In terms of bedrooms, for example, the value of additional rooms probably starts decreasing "after you reach the number of bedrooms that the average household needs, which is probably three to four."

The study, by Sirmans and his colleague David Macpherson, was sponsored by the National Association of Realtors.

Improvement .... Average sale price increase

Square feet (1) ..... 33 percent

Lot size (2) ... 3.3

Age (3) ........-0.8

Bathroom (4) ... 8.7

Bedroom (4) .... 3.7

Garage .........10.8

Fireplace ...... 8.9

Air conditioning... 8.3

Pool ...7.7

Source: Remodeling magazine

(1) Per 1,000 square feet.

(2) Per 1,000 square feet.

(3) Per year.

(4) Each additional beyond one.

[Last modified August 5, 2005, 13:04:02]