Very interesting question.

I don't know what's right, and what's wrong, but I'll offer my best guess ratio.

Of course, the big variable, is... does the pool add or subtract anything from the value of the existing house?

My goals as we were designing and budgeting our pool, was to make darn sure that we didn't de-value our house by building a pool that was not on par with the house.

Anyways... all that said, we spent about 10% of the value of our house to build our pool, with decking. We've still got landscape and a fence, so could easily be 11 or 12% when relatively "complete".

We live in south Louisiana, which perhaps contrary to what many may expect, house values are extremely high right now (truly a housing shortage since hurrincane katrina.) I can easily see how folks could reasonably spend 20-30% of their home's value on a pool.

Our pool costs about the same as our first house did, 17 years ago. Wow. house = pool.

Don't know about any ratio rules or recommendations, but we spent 10% on our pool. No particular reason, it just worked out that way, we live in Northern California.

Again good question, I had a rude awakening moving to Florida from NC, I would think that value ratio really doesnt exist in many places. Remember, pools in FL, and a few other places, almost become part of your living space, unlike a pool in northern New Jersey that is only open for 3 months out of the year. I too gasped for air when I read how much people were spending on their pools, but if you want to make it an outdoor oasis, that comes with a hefty price tag....I now am ready for a portable oxygen tank...but I think its like remodeling a kitchen, you get back your return, depending on where you live. And in FL add another $18,000 for a screen enclosure. Doing the math, we spent just over a 1/2 a percent of our sale price on the remodel...and we bought when the market in FL was high. Look at my recent post, "pool remodel is done" I think that is what I called it, cant remember...how sad. We did more than just the pool we added an outdoor kitchen, waterfall, and new decking too. Due to the falling housing market, right now it would be impossible for us to recoup our sale price and improvements. We are hoping the market turns around before we ever have to sell. But if I had to sell my home, what we did will sell my home faster....and judging by home many homes are sitting on the market in our neighborhood that would be a good thing if you had to move. Do you live in an area where pools are used almost year round?

I doubt strongly it added quite this much value - but pool (with solar) and hardscaping cost about 10% of our current home value - we're in Northern California. We really didn't want to spend a lot more than that - luckily we didn't have to!

Dont know if this helps any, but a realtor friend of mine once told me that a pool "generally" adds about $10,000 to $20,000 to the value of your home depending upon the pool. I'm sure there are exceptions to this though. I live in AZ and spent $26,000 on my pool a year ago, I just could not see or afford to spend over $30,000. Just my 2 cents...

Recently while talking with a PB, he mentioned the cost of the pool should never be more than 25% of the value of the house. Maybe that was just part of a sales pitch. ;-)

When we put in our pool the housing market had not hit its current slump, so we did not really adhere to our budget. Houses in this area are now selling for around $50,000 to $100,000 less than they were before.

With the pool, outdoor kitchen, bar, screened enclosure, landscaping, we probably spent about $110,000. With the plummetting house values, we probably couldn't get more than $500,000 out of our home. That works out to about 22% of the house value.

We spent about 12% of our homes value on our pool. This does not include landscaping, furniture, etc. as we are still waiting for it to be completed. In our area, the housing market is in a slump and there is no way that we could get out of it, what we have put into it since we moved a year ago. We plan on staying here for awhile so I'm hoping that will be different by the time we are reading to sale.

I'm in real estate business here in the Governator state (Sacramento area). Building a pool costs roughly 10% to 15% of the value of the home. But I've seen many spectacular pools with all the features, kitchen & landscaping, so the whole project could easily be 20% or even as high as 30%.

Unfortunately, the value of your home will only increase by half of what you spent on your backyard project. In a way this is a good thing, so your property tax doesn't go up as high. So for investment reasons, you actually lose money by adding a pool (because you only get 50% return on your investment) unlike adding a bedroom or a bath (where your investment is roughly doubled).

Very similar to several of the posts above. Also live in N. Calif. Spent 15-18% of what I purchased the home for 18 mo ago. Includes pool, solar, extra decking, landscaping in front and back, furniture. Housing market has now plummeted and would lose it all if I had to sell now. Hoping market will recover within 8-10 yrs when I'd like to move. In the meantime, the cost for the added enjoyment we have as a family with our new outdoor living space is priceless. No regrets.

We are currently in the process of building a pool, and it looks like we are in the 10% range too. Unfortunately a pool doesn't add anything to the house price around here. My neighbors sold their house 2 yrs. ago, with a $28,000 pool, and they only got $2000 added to their appraisal for "landscaping"!!

We're putting in at least $40k for our pool, but that includes decking, cabanna with lots of extra storage for garage items, solar heating, in-pool spa, waterfalls, fencing, retaining walls, outdoor kitchen, etc. If I sell, I'll loose most of the $40k+. But I've already got tons of equity in the house, and after this is done, I'm finishing off extra space in the house which I will get a large return on. Besides the kids are still in Elem. school, and I'm not leavin' until their done with college!!No regrets here either!

We might have to get older, but nobody said that we have to grow up!!!

"...the cost for the added enjoyment we have as a family with our new outdoor living space is priceless."

Touché!

Mine was a remodel & I spent around 4% on the reno work. I think 10% definitely sounds reasonable.

Talking to realtors in the past I have heard that a pool can add about 10k to the price of the house (compared to an equiv. house w/out). Normally the person paying for the pool is not going to see the money they put into when they sell.

johnny_depth - ya like that one??? I thought hard to come up with that. Didn't even have a Turborita first. What I meant to say was "the captive audience we have now with the teenagers to torment them with our continual presence is priceless paybacks ;-)" Nah, really - if you catch them in the 30 min intervals they aren't being moody, it's kind of fun hanging out as a family still.