We loved our neighborhood, but not our home…

When Veronica and I first moved to Austin, we bought a relatively inexpensive home with the intent of turning it into a rental after selling our property in the country and building for ourselves. But our plans changed for a few reasons.

Do you love your Austin neighborhood?

It turns out that the house we bought is in a great location. The neighborhood is friendly with good schools, our gym is right around the corner, and we have some of the best running and mountain biking trails in Austin right out our front door. So we really love where we live, even if we weren’t in love with our home.

How much has your Austin, Texas home increased in value?

Home and land prices skyrocketed through COVID. Houses are selling for 1.5-2X what they were selling for in 2019. That means that a $500K house in 2019 is now $750K to $1M. In-town lots have experienced even higher rates of appreciation.

Does a HELOC make more sense than a new mortgage?

Interest rates shot up from a historic low of around 2% to over 6+%, drastically reducing our buying power.

So we had a choice; we could either stay in our neighborhood and move into a newer home a couple of blocks over, paying thousands more in interest per year on a house that we still don’t love, or move out of our neighborhood and make commuting for everything (gym, school, groceries, MTB trails) a daily hassle.

We decided to do neither. We thought, “We like where we live, we just don’t love our home.” A full remodel of our current home made more sense than moving. We redid everything - new roofing, siding, windows, doors, floors, paint, bathrooms, kitchen, and decks. We even built a soundproof studio for our office in the backyard. The investment in these improvements was substantial, but we were still comfortably under the valuation of our home before it was remodeled. Also, if we decide to sell in the future, our remodeled home should sell more quickly and at a premium compared to non-remodeled homes in our neighborhood.

Now, we still live in our great neighborhood. We still have our friendly neighbors, our gym is still around the corner, and Veronica can still easily leave me in the dust on the backtrails. And we live in a home that we love and brings joy every day.

Honestly, the only regret is that we didn’t do it sooner.

Remodeling using your home’s equity might be the best choice for your family.

Remodel Reason #1 - You should love where you live.

Have you ever walked into a space and felt more calm and relaxed? Maybe it was at a spa, a hotel, or a Smith House remodel. :)

Or have you ever been in a place that makes you feel on edge and stretched thin, like an emergency room waiting area? The spaces we inhabit can drastically alter how we feel. If a house is cluttered and dingy, filled with mundane materials chosen by a builder to maximize profit rather than joy, it can leave you feeling low, uninspired, and embarrassed. On the other hand, a home purposely designed for you and your family, with bright, cheery rooms contrasted with quiet, contemplative spaces, and built with care using materials, hardware, and furnishings that inspire and delight, can make you feel more upbeat and optimistic, ready to make a positive change in the world.

Life is short. Why not live in a home you love?

Remodel Reason #2 - You can use your homes increased value to your advantage.

If you bought your home before 2020, you've likely seen a significant increase in its value. Home equity lines of credit and home equity loans (HELOCs and HELOANs) are excellent ways to use your increased equity to finance a remodel without altering your original mortgage. While 2% interest rates are probably not coming back for a while, a higher interest HELOC can be paid down quickly, allowing you to take advantage of your home's appreciation.

Remodel Reason #3 - It’s an investment that provides immediate and future returns.

Return on investment always seems to come up in remodel discussions, and I get it, but it's also sort of weird because people usually don’t talk about ROI with other quality of life investments that impact their lives much less than their home. For example, I love splurging on a great dining experience, but I never think, “I wonder what kind of recuperation I will see from this investment.” The return is in the experience. In the joy I get from great food, a great atmosphere, and great company. Yet, when we talk about investing in the spaces in which we spend most of our lives, all of a sudden we become Warren Buffet. But we aren’t flipping homes and trying to maximize returns.

We are creating a space for you and your family to call home. A place that reenergizes, inspires, comforts, calms, and heals. There is no greater return on investment than that.

But for you finance majors out there, you can rest easy knowing that the equity in your home usually more than covers the cost of the remodel, and because you remodeled, the resale value of your home increases as well. It’s a win-win. You get to enjoy a home that has been expertly crafted for your family now, and will be able to enjoy a higher market value and quicker turn time if you decide to sell in the future.

You should love where you live. We can help!

If you are ready to transform your cookie-cutter house into a place that truly reflects who you are and helps you live a better life, fill out that contact form today! We would love to hear from you.

Till next time,

JS

Way back when Veronica and I were first married, we bought a small bungalow with bright eyed dreams of fixing it up and turning it into our home. We knew nothing about the process of remodeling and even less about marriage. We ripped half the house down to the studs before we made our first mortgage payment. Boy, oh boy, did things get stressful in a hurry! A year later the renovations were finally completed and our marriage was still intact, but we learned a lot about stress and unmet expectations.

Fast forward to today and Veronica and I are still designing, building, and remodeling homes but we have figured out a few things that make our process much less stressful than that first experience.

Here are five steps that we take at Smith House Company to ensure that our remodels are as stress free as possible.

The Five Steps to a Less-Stress Remodel:

1. Finalize the Design, Budget and Schedule BEFORE the physical work begins.

   Slow is Smooth and Smooth is Fast. It is so tempting to start demolition as soon as you decide to remodel, but you need to have a complete design, schedule and budget before you do any physical work to your home or kitchen. Otherwise you are setting yourself up for a very stressful journey as the scope grows, the timeline drags on, and the budget balloons out of control.

2. Don’t rush the design process.

   Dreaming about what a space could be is one of my favorite parts of the remodeling process. It’s fun to play with different ideas - big ideas, impractical ideas, bad ideas - get them all out and prototype them quickly. Sometimes your first idea is the best, sometimes it’s not. But, either way, this process will help elevate and validate your ideas into a more comprehensive design; meaning less regret, rework and change orders in the future.

3. Build a budget based on hard quotes - not guesses.

   The design-bid process is a cycle. Once you understand the scope of work required for your rough design, go ahead and get ballpark figures from your trades. This early budgeting process helps set expectations and allows for changes in scope or finishes before you waste too much time getting all of the details together only to find out your plan is outside of your budget.

   If the preliminary bids look good, finalize your design and go back to your trades for hard bids on the exact scope of work and specifications. This builds a budget based off of reality instead of guesses.

   Believe me, this one thing will avoid so much stress. The remodel’s cost is the result of the scope, the finish level, and the specifications. It is better to know exactly what the budget is before the work begins. If it is more than you want to spend, you have wasted only a little time, energy and money. Running out of money mid-process is a nightmare for everyone involved.

4. Build a realistic schedule.

   Start to build your final schedule when you get the hard bids back from your trades and material suppliers. Use this information to create a Gantt Chart that takes into account material lead time, the trades estimated time to completion, and project workflow. Work with your trades to understand their timeline and what other trades might be able to work in the house at the same time. Don’t assume anything and make sure that the final schedule is understood and agreed upon by each of your trades. Buy-in from all parties at the planning process is critical to a successful remodel.

5. Work the Plan.

   Now that you have a clear, accurate and documented Design, Budget, and Schedule it is time to start the physical work! Order materials in plenty of time before they are needed. Keep the communication channels open with your trades, making sure everyone understands and agrees upon their start and completion dates. I have found that talking with each trade weekly for about three weeks before they are expected to start, and then every other day the week before they start is a good way to avoid no shows or pushed start dates.

The secret to a less-stress remodel is in a clearly documented and communicated plan.

If you follow the simple steps of creating a clear design document, building a realistic budget, scheduling the work in conjunction with the trades, and then executing the remodel to these documented plans, then you will be well on your way to a successful home improvement project while minimizing your stress.

Building can be super stressful, but it doesn’t have to be. We would love to help.

Till next time,

JS