I was curious about that as well a few months ago and did some research on it. There are a number of threads on this if you search.

My personal take:
about 6 months ago I was deciding between buying a new house or redoing my kitchen. The one house I fell in love with had ikea cabinets. I, personally didn't see that as a positive, but the overall house was great and they did look nice. I found it wasn't a deciding factor for me. The house sold quickly way over asking with multiple offers.

I think how ikea cabinets might affect sales price may be more dependent on your neighborhood and what people expect for that neighborhood, and how well the kitchen looks-regardless of cabinet brand.

I would also think ikea a step up from beaten up builder grade cabinets so it's a small investment for a better return.

I was curious about that as well a few months ago and did some research on it. There are a number of threads on this if you search.

My personal take:
about 6 months ago I was deciding between buying a new house or redoing my kitchen. The one house I fell in love with had ikea cabinets. I, personally didn't see that as a positive, but the overall house was great and they did look nice. I found it wasn't a deciding factor for me. The house sold quickly way over asking with multiple offers.

I think how ikea cabinets might affect sales price may be more dependent on your neighborhood and what people expect for that neighborhood, and how well the kitchen looks-regardless of cabinet brand.

I would also think ikea a step up from beaten up builder grade cabinets so it's a small investment for a better return.

I wouldn't think that most buyers who are not on GW or TKO would not even know the difference if the kitchen "looked" nice. I recently went to an expensive, high end new model home where the sales person bragged about the "upgraded" cabinets. While the exterior finish was pretty, they were mostly cabinets, very few drawers, and what drawers they had were NOT full extension and had the cheap metal lides on the side. High end??? NO THANKS!!!!!

Most people won't know they are Ikea esp if you customize a few things. I don't think it would affect resale as long as the style you chose fit the house.

I agree with other poster who said if they are designed well, then it won't make a difference.
They are a quality cabinet - per our high end architect - with quality hardware and they have a 25 year warranty.
Here's an article that I came across while researching
http://carolreeddesign.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-i-love-ikea-kitchens.html
I asked a question about ikea on gardenweb and received some great info. search for info here as well.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ikea kitchens

The cabinets dont matter as do the overall function and finish of the kitchen. In fact ikea cabinets are among the best in function, operation, hardware, and look.

Spend the money on nice stone counters, stainless appliances, nice flooring and recessed lighting. That is what will hold up in value.

Everybody hit the nail on the head, a kitchen that looks good helps sell a house. Most buyers are not fussy enough, educated enough or detailed enough to dig into the brand of cabinets.

New and updated sells!

Ikea IS a great cabinet with top notch hardware and fittings. They look---and WORK great if the actual kitchen layout is up to the same standards. It should help the bottom line value of your home because they look much pricier than they actually cost.

Another plus to ikea is that since they sell all the pieces individually, if the buyer doesn't like the door style they can just go out and buy a new set of doors and totally change the look for a minimal investment.

We are going with Ikea cabinets and in fact are building them right now ... so I HOPE they don't decrease our home's value!! LOL I am pretty sure the current formica countertops and general tiredness of the kitchen are a detriment to our house's value right now. Once we have the new cabinetry in, the kitchen will sell the house, I'm sure of it. Not that I'll be looking to sell, but as others have said, these are really good cabinets with some high-end features (like Blum hardware and soft-close doors). You put them into a great layout with a few extras like a granite or quartz countertop and you will most certainly improve the value of your house. (I'm banking on it!)

I agree with hollysprings that ikea cabinets should improve the value of your home - especially if you get some of the bells and whistles like pantry pullouts. There was an article that someone posted a few years ago about using Ikea cabinets in a very high-end kitchen. The kitchen looked great!

Honestly unless you are TKO, and let's be honest, most people buying a new kitchen are not, most people buying a home wouldn't know an IKEA cabinet from a Liecht or other high end European cabinet. Wait, IKEA is European.

I think if it looks good, functions well and fits the style of the house, an upgraded IKEA kitchen will really add value to your home.

Check out Ikeafans for some really different hacks that could make your kitchen even better.

Thanks for the great feedback everybody. To be clear, I'm not concerned about the quality of the Ikea cabs. I'm concerned about the market perception vs. other brands. In other words, if I save a few grand by buying Ikea instead of a more expensive brand, will I cost myself very much in resale? If the main thing people see is the shiny new and nice aspect along with soft-close drawers, the Ikea cabinets are a much smarter buy. On the other hand, if people see the Ikea cabinets and worry that they don't have dovetailed drawers and are made out of MDF (and maybe have a frustrating memory of trying to assemble a cheap bookcase at some point), then the Ikea is a mistake.

Sounds like the consensus is that there are no worries. Again, thanks for the great feedback.

--
AustinMatt

I have nothing against IKEA cabinets. In fact, I lived with a kitchen with IKEA cabinets for a decade. We can all think of many beautiful customized Ikea kitchens (just look at some of the kitchens Sarah Richardson has done). I would do an IKEA kitchen again in a heartbeat, if it was right for the house and right for the market I lived in. I also agree that many people buying homes know relatively little about kitchen cabinets or brands.

Before making a decision to use them for a renovation if I planned to sell in one or two years, I would be asking these questions:

1. In general, what kinds of cabinets are people in my neighborhood installing if they plan on their kitchen being the kitchen in their "forever" house? Will Ikea cabinets be considered comparable or just a little step down? Then Ikea cabinets will be more than fine.

2. What do the realtor listing say about the kitchens in comparable houses?
Do the listings even mention the cabinets? In my town the higher-end listings do sometimes mention the cabinet company when it is well known in the area (like Crown Point) or use phrases like "custom cabinets".

That is to say, installing Ikea cabinets was a very sound investment in my 1959 ranch "starter home" (especially since the entire kitchen of cabinets cost less than 2,000 dollars) and definitely helped with resale. When my neighbor recently installed Ikea cabinets in her relatively-modest 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath two story home built in 1918, it certainly helped her get market value for her home (about $275,000). So it was a wise investment with a lot of bang for the buck.

But there are many lovely old homes in my town in the $400,000 to $600,000 range that would not be well served for re-sale with an IKEA kitchen. The market for those homes are couples in their later 30s and 40s who are "moving up" to their second home, which will they hope be their "forever" home. If they loved a particular house and it had an IKEA kitchen they still might very well buy it; but they would want to buy it for a lower price because they would estimate that they would need at least 40,000 dollars to renovate it.

All of which is to state the obvious: how much value the Ikea kitchen will bring you when you sell all depends on your particular market.

francoise47, maybe it's 'cause I'm doing an Ikea kitchen in a "forever" home, but ... I think if the buyers knew anything about Ikea kitchens and recognized the cabinets as being Ikea, they would not feel immediately compelled to worry about spending $40K renovating. If the layout is good and the cabinets are in great shape, so long as they don't fight with the feel of the rest of the house I really can't imagine they'd be a turn-off. What's a turn-off is an outdated kitchen where the buyer will HAVE to worry about renovating. This is one of the main reasons we're doing our kitchen now. There is a chance we will move in the next couple of years, and rather than have to do our kitchen over last-minute to sell the house (but never really get to enjoy it ourselves), we're doing it now. A couple more years of us using the kitchen in its current state isn't going to make it look any younger! And going with any cabinetry other than Ikea would cost us the whole budget in cabinets alone! Not smart.

I do want to offer my opinion that aside from a tired kitchen, another big turnoff for buyers would be if it's so taste-specific that they can't live with what's been chosen. For instance, if you are selling in the next couple of years, for heaven's sake DON'T pick an ultra-dramatic granite, or green formica countertops. Stay neutral and try to choose things that will have broad appeal (if there is such a thing), but which, of course, you can live with if the sale never happens. Make it look fabulous. Just not High Drama Fabulous.

I hope these opinions have helped you. I really do not think you have anything to worry about with Ikea cabs impacting your resale. That said, if you can afford one of the middle-priced cabinet types, I think that would be a better choice than their lowest end.

Advertise the house as having "updated European cabinets". Put them together with some neutral-ish high-end look finishes (stainless sells to a younger to middle-aged market as does granite or other solid-surface) and call it done.

Heck, for the average buyer, they won't even look much at WHAT the appliances are, you could put the cheapest stainless fridge, DW, and range in and people's eyes would glisten.

alicepalce, sounds like we're remodeling now for the same reason you are. Why remodel to sell it and never get to enjoy the thing?

AustinMatt, YUP! Totally there with ya. We did this in our last house ("can't live with it, can't sell without it") and we were SO glad we had a fresh new kitchen while we had it. And not only that, the house sold to the first people who walked in, in part because the kitchen, while compact, was newly refurbished. It had formica countertops and not a single iota of stainless, but it was fresh, clean, neutral and functional, and that's more important that almost anything else.

The Ikea cabinets allowed us to do far more in this kitchen than our budget could have stretched with more expensive cabinets. If you're in the same boat and like the door options Ikea offers, you should go for it. As others have said, though, you can still do Ikea boxes and hardware and get custom doors through places like Scherrs if you are so inclined.

Have fun with the process, and enjoy your new kitchen!!

I agree with most on here, but I'm also biased because we used Ikea cabinets to remodel our kitchen. (Cabinets cost us $4k instead of $20K) Anyone that has walked in our kitchen doesn't know they are ikea unless we told them. Especially because we used non-ikea everything else. There are so many things we did customize that even more makes it look like a custom kitchen and not an Ikea one including building an island with a MW Drawer/Warming Drawer, spice pull out, and blind cabinet instead of the Ikea Corner cabinet.

I put I. A fantastic IKEA kitchen and it added to the sale big time. I did a 9.6’ peninsula in the Voxtorp (beige glossy acrylic drawers and backs. Added features
Like lighted top drawer, deep drawers for holding heavy dishes, a wi e fridge at the wall end of it. Then for the rest of the kitchen, I used IKEA guts and found a great company online who makes custom doors and drawer fronts for IKEA. I selected a gorgeous glass acrylic that is scratch resistant and just elevates the style.

I chose a Basalto color. A warm ish gray with white quartz countertops for contrast. Look awesome. IKEA really has cool features like a mini drawer in a drawer, lighted drawers, under cabinet lighting, soft close door and drawers. And awesome inserts that help up sell and keep things tidy. That stuff really up sells a kitchen. Get good fixtures, appliances and custom doors and drawers and it elevates the whole room.

@dsigner who did you use for the doors?