I think if you can't decide it might mean that you wouldn't mind moving. Surely moving would be easier.

We decide to relocate when someone's job changes and we have to.

There are many factors that are weighed in whether to move or stay in place. Probably the most important question is whether or not you like the area you are in right now. That is the one thing you can't change.

Both are pretty big money sinks. With moving, you have moving expenses, new things you must buy for the house, loan fees, and realtor fees. But these expenses are going to pale in comparison to remodeling expenses.

I think remodeling is better if there is something or many things that you love about your house that you will not get somewhere else, and will miss when it is gone. Things like it belonged to X before you bought it, or the location is great for you.

Moving is better the rest of the time.

just my 2 cents.

For us, the choice was to remodel simply because we couldn't afford to "move up" to anything substantially better, but the 30 year old kitchen and baths in our house were starting to go downhill fast.

The issue we face, now, is that we have remodeled and it's a nicer home but still small and same neighborhood. Had we been able to afford moving up instead, it would have been preferable.

These posts are very insightful. Thank you. According to Zillow, the median home value in my neighborhood is $210,500 and home values have declined -2.6% over the past year and Zillow predicts they will fall -0.3% within the next year. I think I could sell my house for about 225K to 230K. My house needs some major improvements though. I need new kitchen and bath desperately, new concrete work in drive way/steps to front door, hard wood floors new finishing, I have a disgusting popcorn ceiling in living/dining room, new furnace needed, and my back patio is really ugly with a horrible fiberglass patio cover and rotting frame underneath it. I really want a 6 ft privacy fence to give myself privacy---my house is a side-by-side. I like the layout of my house and the close proximity to my work but I am wondering if spending the $ for improvements is a waste if the values are going down. The thing I hate the most about my house is my smoking neighbors and lack of privacy. A fence will not keep out the smoke. This is my big dilemma. To get what I want in another neighborhood will cost $350-$400K.

The HGTV show Love it or List it answers your questions nicely. The unhappy homeowners have to come up with a budget for a remodel and also be qualified for a new purchase. Mostly something has to give. The budget usually doesn't cover everything wanted in a remodel, many times due to unexpected things like leaks, etc. And to find a home that they are qualified to purchase, often they have to go out of their area and accept a 1-2 hour commute. Anywhere you move, you could encounter smokers, and that is usually something you don't know till you move in. That's the reality of things. Also don't depend on Zillow and it's predictions. It's very much a generality. If I were you, I'd figure out my budget for fixing the home and prioritize what needs to be fixed either to increase the value for resale or to make yourself enjoy it more. Next you need to go to your bank and see how big of a loan you qualify for so you could move. Understand that when fixing things, Morphy's law states clearly that something else will pop up that you hadn't figured on fixing.
From your description of your home, I think it falls into the "fixer" category, so would be on the low end of the comps.
Good luck to you with whatever you decide!

We'd lived in our home for 10 years when we began asking ourselves the same question. We looked around at houses on the market but kept coming back to the fact that we really liked where we lived. So, we remodeled.

Sounds like you're not so keen on your current location.

I am sorry to be contentious but I simply must disagree that the show, Love It or List It, answers any questions. The show is completely fake. The things they "discovered" were usually things they would have known before they started, the value increases are preposterous, and some of the houses that the realtor shows are not even for sale. When they can't find a stunning home on the market they will pay people to show their freshly remodeled home, acting like it is for sale.

Aside from that, their costs are crazy far off and their solutions are silly. They can tear down a load bearing wall, replace a beam, and open up your enclosed space for $8,000, but rerouting a condensation pipe requires $4,000. Or you need a high efficiency furnace so we can vent out the side of the house, which will cost you $8,000....power vent anyone???

bry911, you are correct. It is a TV show, BUT the reality is that you need a budget to remodel. We had such a budget, and remodeling went forward UNTIL a cracked slab was discovered (hidden by carpet) which cost $30,000 OVER budget to fix. The fix required a whole new slab in 3 rooms. With a new slab comes new flooring that was also not in the original budget. Luckily, we had the money to come up with the fixes, and did sell the house over asking.

The other reality is comps. If your home has the problems of that of the OP, well, you are going to be either selling "as is," at a reduced price, or bringing the home up to comp value by remodeling.

Last reality is get a qualification letter from a bank so you know what you can actually afford when looking for a home.

Aside from that, I love that show!! :-) Entertainment isn't a bad thing.

You should contact a realtor, it sounds like many of the things that you want are not so much remodels as they are repairs and maintenance. We can give you general advice on the costs of selling and remodeling, but when you get into specific advice about your home and your area, then you really need a real estate professional to advise you. I would caution you against using Zillow for any real decisions, they just use an algorithm to establish values and there is no oversite of its effectiveness. In my experience they are more wrong than right.

Be completely honest with the realtor, ask them about cost effective repairs, tell them what you like about your house and what you dont, and if they advise you to sell, ask to see two or three homes, at their convenience, which they believe will demonstrate the value of selling.

Remodeled square footage is the most expensive square footage that you can buy. Second is buying all new construction square footage. The cheapest way for anyone to get more space is to move up.

Remodeling costs are FAR more than you think they will be. http://www.remodeling.hw.net/cost-vs-value/2015/

I echo others who said that much of what you are describing sounds more like deferred maintenance than "remodeling". That negatively impacts market value. And only SOLD comps can actually tell you what market value might be. Call a local realtor for a CMA to help you with your decisions. Good luck!

I just looked at this website. It was very informative. By moving up, do you mean to a more upscale neighborhood or a bigger house or an already remodeled home? Thanks for any explanation.

We were faced with this question. The decor in our home is on the verge of becoming dated in a neighborhood where buyers expect updated decor and some major maintenance work will need to be done to our house in a few years. If we stayed in our house we would need to spend quite a bit to either add an elevator or chair lift for my mother-in-law. I told my husband that if he wasn't willing to commit to staying another 10 years and paying to do the previous three things then we needed to move now. It wasn't worth it to stay for another 2-3 years because we'd still need to do some major updating to the decor to sell and we'd have to add the chair lift or elevator. It was unclear whether or not we'd have to do the major maintenance work because some major household systems were nearing the end of their life expectancy so we'd be living on borrowed time.

Once my husband thoughtfully considered what I was saying he decided that we should move now. He concluded that he'd rather spend the money on something new than spend that money just to sell the house. We ended having to spend money on updating some of the house to get it ready to sell but it was still much less than if we had waited a few years.