Credit: Allison H. Smith/Shutterstock
When you buy a house, you become obsessed with its value. There are very good reasons for this, of course; you just dumped a lot of cash into the place, and probably took on long-term debt in the form of a mortgage—every dollar of increased home value increases your equity. Increased home value also means you can borrow more against the property to pay other bills or make improvements, which will increase its value further.
The conversation around those improvements is usually additive: we talk about adding bedrooms or bathrooms, adding closets or garages, or adding features and appliances. Sometimes, however, the best way to increase your home’s value is to remove something. There are certain aspects of a home that are less popular than you might think—that people regard as unattractive, or see as nothing more than a regular maintenance chore that’s not worth the return in terms of enjoyment or convenience. If you want to increase your home’s value and it has one or more of these things, you may want to consider having them removed.
Certain kinds of trees
It’s true that, in general, trees add value to a property. Beautiful, well-maintained trees are an essential part of a landscaping plan, provide shade, and just look really nice. People like trees, and seeing trees on the property can help sell your house.
Well, most of the time. Trees can have a quantifiable, appraised value—and that value can be negative. There are several scenarios where trees on your property will actually lower your home’s value:
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Invasive or unattractive species of trees—trees with little curb appeal or bad-smelling fruit will be seen as a removal cost.
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Property damage. If the tree is in poor condition or too close to the house and poses a danger to the house itself, potential buyers will hesitate to consider your house, dropping its value. Tree roots can also invade sewer lines, water pipes, and the home’s foundation, all of which are expensive repairs.
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Appearance. Sick, poorly-maintained, or dead trees are a drag on home value. They lack all the appeal of healthy, beautiful trees, and imply a lot of potential damage and expensive work ahead.
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Maintenance. Having too many trees can signal to potential buyers that they will be spending a lot of time and money caring for them. Tree trimming can cost as much as $700 per tree, and that’s money buyers might mentally deduct from the value of your home.
Poorly maintained swimming pools
An in-ground pool is a crapshoot in terms of home value. If a buyer is specifically looking for a home with a pool, they may see it as a value-add and be willing to pay for it—but even under perfect conditions (comparable houses in your neighborhood have pools, you enjoy enough warm weather to make a pool useful, and you have the lot size to accommodate a good-sized pool) a pool only adds about 7% to your home’s value at best.
And that’s if it’s in good condition. A poorly maintained pool will look more like a big expense to potential buyers; regular pool maintenance runs close to $1,500 per year, and repairing a pool can cost as much as $1,500 if the pool is leaking.
Removing a pool isn’t cheap, either. Filling it in (as opposed to complete demolition) will run you anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000, so removing it has to boost your potential home value by at least that much to make sense. On the other hand, if the pool is in poor shape, potential buyers will see that huge bill coming in their future and factor that into their offer price. Bottom line: If you have an old, dirty, leaky pool in the backyard you’re better off removing it if you want to pump up your home’s value.
Formal dining rooms
The formal dining room used to be standard in most homes, but it’s become an outdated and unwanted feature for many buyers. In a survey conducted by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), 85% of homebuyers wanted an open kitchen/dining area arrangement instead of a formal dining room, and a study conducted by Houzz found that nearly 75% of homeowners ate in their kitchens instead of a dining area. While high-end homes can still benefit from formal dining rooms, in most houses buyers are looking for more flexible spaces that can be whatever they want them to be.
If you’re undertaking a home renovation, it might be time to consider what that space should be instead of an outdated dining room few buyers want—an office, extra bedroom, or bonus space might be more attractive and thus add value. If you’re not ready to sledgehammer everything, transforming the room via staging and design might have a similar impact.
Texture and wallpaper
People put a lot of value on the aesthetic qualities of a house, and there are certain things that drag down home value. Removing these can give that value a boost:
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Textured walls and wallpaper. It’s difficult to quantify how much a bespoke texture on your walls or a house wrapped floor to ceiling in wallpaper affects your home value. It’s a very personal aesthetic choice—if you applied the texture and chose the wallpaper, obviously you love it. If you can find buyers who love it as much as you do, you’re golden.
The fact is, homes with wallpaper and textured walls tend to get lower offers. These choices make homes feel dated, and potential buyers just see a price tag for removing it, which can run between $650 and $950 for wallpaper and between $500 and $1,000 per 500 square feet for texture. If you can remove these yourself, you will probably see a boost in your home’s value.
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Popcorn ceilings. Popcorn ceilings have bee reviled for a long time, but they persist in the wild. There’s certainly nothing objectively wrong with a popcorn ceiling (as long as it doesn’t contain asbestos—if they were installed in the 1980s or before, you should probably get them tested before you do anything) in terms of everyday living. That said, they tend drag down your home’s perceived value because they’re ugly as sin and look outdated.
Getting that value back can be tricky. It costs between $900 and $2,600 to remove popcorn ceilings. The value-add will range from $2,500 on the low end (for a smaller, more modest home) to as much as $35,000 for a larger, more expensive house. Whether removal will actually be worth it to you depends on what kind of house you own, how hot your local market is (in a seller’s market, people will be more likely to overlook something like popcorn ceilings), and how much you pay to have the work done. Still, you can potentially add some real value here, so it’s worth looking into.
Carpeting
Some people love wall-to-wall carpeting. They love the feel of warm carpet on their feet and like the way the floors are never cold. For some, it just feels cozy. For others, carpets are just fuzzy petri dishes of dirt, pet stains, and germs—especially once they’re a few years old and sport some stains and wear-and-tear.
But not only will carpeting never recoup your investment in terms of increased home value—it probably actually lowers your home’s value. People are willing to pay as much as 54% more for a house with hardwood floors, but for many people carpet is seen as a cheap option that might be hiding flaws in the flooring underneath. If the floor under your carpet is in good shape, paying an average cost of $120 to $200 to remove the carpet might be very, very worth it.
