Pandemic planning

Your home has become more than a castle and now it’s time to renovate

Like everyone else, you’ve been spending lots of time at home the past several weeks. And you’ve probably become more acquainted with all the flaws in your home: the outdated kitchen cabinets, the frayed carpeting in the family room that needs to be replaced by hardwood, the spare bedroom that needs to be converted into a dedicated office.

Maybe the thought of a renovation has crossed your mind. But this couldn’t possibly be the right time for one, could it? Well, it depends.

Amid the pandemic, home construction — including remodelling — had been deemed an essential business under the original stayat-home orders in many places. But whether a specific project is considered appropriate is a matter largely determined by homeowners and contractors.

“Putting a roof back on is essential,” said David Merrick, president of Merrick Design and Build in Kensington, MD.

Merrick, who also serves as chairman of the government affairs committee for the National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI), said contractors are more likely to take on outside rather than inside projects. Not surprisingly, home construction activity nationwide has fallen significantly since the COVID-19 outbreak, according to the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, and is not expected to recover until well into 2021.

The slump in activity may work to your advantage, experts say. Because work has dried up, some contractors may be more willing to give you a better deal on the pricing than they would have several months ago when demand for their services was high.

If you opt to wait until the pandemic eases, experts say, you can still use this downtime to plan your project and get on your contractor’s radar. Once you decide on what work needs to be done and when to do it, be sure to put your order in right away. “If you wait until September to place your order, (contractors will) have five months of orders in front of you,” Merrick said. Then, it will “be hard time to get the contractor to return your phone call.”

Here are some other factors you can consider ahead of time during this lull:

BUDGETING & FINANCING

Probably the best thing you can do is not get too caught up in the esthetics but to invest considerable time concentrating on the logistics.

“Every home improvement project will cost more than you think it will and will take more time than you planned,” Bob Harkson, chief financial planner at Phase2 Wealth Advisors in Gig Harbor, Wash., told The Post last year.

Harkson said the biggest problem he sees with his financial-planning clients is that they haven’t budgeted enough.

The tricky thing about home improvement is maximizing your return on investment. You want to spend money that will yield a return when you sell your home, but not overspend way beyond what a buyer would be willing to pay you. So how do you find the sweet spot?

Experts say that kitchen and bathroom renovations are among the projects that provide homeowners the best yields. According to Remodeling magazine, kitchens recouped 62.1 per cent and bathrooms 67.2 per cent. Others include: 70.8 per cent for windows; 75.6 per cent for siding; 68.2 per cent for a roof and 75.6 per cent for a deck.

Dan Diclerico, a smart-home expert for Homeadvisor, a New York-based home improvement platform, offered this rule of thumb: “You should spend about five to 15 per cent of your home value on kitchen renovation,” Diclerico told The Post in May 2019. “So, if your home is worth $300,000, you should spend $15,000 to $45,000 on the kitchen. A bathroom renovation should cost about three to seven per cent of your home value.”

“The more thorough you are in the planning stages, the more likely you are to come in on budget for your project,” Diclerico said.

A major component of planning involves accounting for surprises. Sonu Mittal, head of retail mortgage lending for Citizens Bank in Plano, Texas, said you should budget an extra 10 per cent for unforeseen expenses.

LIMITED DOLLARS

Justin Pierce, a real estate investor and real estate agent, suggests that homeowners opting to manage their own projects should use a construction journal to stay on top of the project and to give them a record with contractors when something goes awry.

“Keeping a journal has really helped me,” Pierce wrote in a recent Washington Post column. “If things go badly, it can be useful in court or arbitration. Contractors, especially shady contractors, are good at complicating the issue or adding doubt in your mind. They blame delays and increased costs on the weather, additional work, inspectors and the client. You may be shocked to receive $10,000 in change orders at the final accounting. This is impossible to unravel six weeks down the road. It’s best to note things as they happen and share milestones and your understanding of them with the contractor.”

Pierce said the journal should include the start date, major milestones, inspection dates, subcontractor work schedule and change orders.

The Washington Post