If there’s one industry that has benefited from Covid-19, it’s the home improvement sector. There’s been a 58% annual increase in the project leads for home professionals since June as more time at home and extra boredom leaves property owners focusing on their interiors.
You’re the same, yet you haven’t hired a contractor or bought the materials for a simple reason – you don’t know where to start! With the neighbors digging up their gardens and painting their exteriors, you’d assume the process was easy. It isn’t.
Before you decide, you’ve got to weigh up the pros and cons of each project, and here’s how.
The Cost
If you believe CNN, you should expect your remodel to cost 50% more than usual, and take twice as long to be completed. Why? It’s because the demand is sky-high at the moment, so the rates and waiting times are moving in the same direction. Of course, not every service will follow this pattern. For example, gardening solutions should fall in popularity as the fall turns into winter, meaning the rates will drop too. However, if you plan on using your garden thanks to strategic landscaping, you can wait a couple of weeks and cash-in.
Your Neighbors
There’s always an element of competition between neighbors, but it’s mainly a friendly rivalry. Typically, a community is tight-knit and looks out for each other, so if you ask the people in the neighborhood questions, they’ll probably give you the answers. For example, home extensions experienced a 52% bump during the lockdown, as did security and privacy – fence installation and repairs increased by up to 166%. As a result, picking your neighbor’s brains about which contractor they used and why, or what hardware and software they decided to buy could provide much-needed inspiration. All they can say is no, in which case you lose nothing.
Comfort
You spend most of your time at home, so it needs to be comfortable. However, you also must be able to relax at the end of a long day without your routine becoming a grind. Ladies and gentlemen, you need a home theater design expert to highlight what your spare bedroom could become! Sure, it’s expensive, and it’s definitely an indulgence, but it’s worth it in many respects. For starters, working in the living room and chilling out there is getting old. Plus, there is no end to the pandemic in sight, so a home theater could be a stroke of genius in a year!
Added Value
Adding value to your home is never a bad move since the market rarely tanks. Even now, the housing sector is going strong, with people cashing in on positive equity and moving to a new destination. You might have no intentions of leaving, yet that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be savvy. If you can concentrate on increasing the listing price of your property now when you have time, it’ll save you the hassle in the future. Garage, anyone?!
Home renovation projects are down to the individual; however, it never hurts to consider the costs involved, your comfort, or the future market valuation.
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