Bath rehab can aid resale

An old bathroom can scar any nice home for buyers, so sellers need to think about it.

Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Every serious home seller knows that scrubbing, de-cluttering and all manner of primping are mandatory. But how far should you go in repairing a bathroom?

Buyers pay a lot of attention to bathrooms. They know it’s expensive to remodel, and they’re mightily turned off by disrepair. Plenty of older homes have bath tiles in horrid hues of yellow, pink, blue and green that cry out for replacement.

A bathroom rehab can move to the top of the to-do list when other parts of the home have already been updated. Buyers tend to expect that a whole house is of similar quality.

If you have already updated the kitchen and other parts of the house, a shabby, old bathroom can stick in buyers’ memories, turning your lovely, reasonably priced home into the one shoppers remember as “the house with the ugly blue tiles.”

But is it worth remodeling just to help along a sale?

A full bathroom remodeling is expensive, even if you stick to basics. In the Washington area, a modest renovation costs $16,028 (1.5 percent more than the national average) and recovers $12,932 through a higher resale value, according to an annual study done by Remodeling magazine. That means you recover only about 81 percent of the investment. The magazine defined such a project as updating a typical 5-by-7 foot bathroom without moving walls. Finishes are nice, but not lavish, including a new porcelain-on-steel tub with walls around the tub covered with four-inch square tiles. The bathroom includes a vanity with a solid-surface top (such as Corian) and an integral sink, ceramic tile floor, and a recessed medicine cabinet with light. In other words, it’s a nice, clean, new bathroom.

Frills cost much more. Remodeling magazine reports a cost of nearly $52,000 for expanding that typical 35-square-foot bathroom to 100 square feet and outfitting it with such luxuries as a whirlpool tub, a shower with body sprays, separate toilet compartment, custom cabinets, heated floor tiles and heated towel bars. Upon resale, that kind of job, which wouldn’t be an uncommon level of luxury for the master bath, recovers 73 percent of the money invested.

You would be foolish to sink $50,000 into a bathroom just to enhance a home’s resale value. But what about the more down-to-earth $16,000 investment? After all, it’s not uncommon now to cut your price by that amount if the house hasn’t drawn any offers. Should you leave the price alone and put the money into a rehab?

“I wouldn’t do that, to be honest with you,” said Anita Centofanti, a Long Foster agent in Bethesda, Md. “I think it’s very speculative for a seller to put a lot of money into a property in today’s market without knowing if it will be to everyone’s taste.”

That’s not to say you can just leave a shabby bathroom alone. Centofanti says all bathrooms must be “serviceable and clean.”

Re-caulking and cleaning the grout around the tub are pre-sale jobs necessary for almost all homes. And other fixes, short of a full overhaul, can help you get that serviceable and clean look without spending a bundle.

Centofanti is a fan of refinishing worn bathtubs and even the old ceramic tiles surrounding the tub. One refinishing company, Miracle Method, charges about $1,190 to apply an acrylic finish to the tub and the three walls around it. (If refinishing has been done before, tack on another $125 to strip off the old finish.) Refinishing a tub only, without the surrounding tiles, costs about $495.

You can do other spot improvements to address the bathroom’s most glaring problems. Home Depot’s prices start at $119 for new toilets, and $284 for pedestal sinks. (Old sinks also are candidates for resurfacing.) A plumber will charge a few hundred dollars more for installation. Or perhaps all you need is to freshen the place with new faucets, light fixtures or a mirror. You certainly want to spring for a new toilet seat at least.

But if the bathroom is in such sorry shape that spot fixes won’t bring it up to the standards of the rest of the house (or to the standards that buyers expect in your price range), you might consider a full rehab.

Bob Kay, owner of Kitchen Bath Factory in Arlington, Va., said a typical gut-and-rehab of a 5-by-7 foot bathroom costs $12,000 to $18,000, in line with Remodeling magazine’s estimate. Costs hit the higher end if it’s an older house that has tiles set into a thick layer of “mud” or concrete. They’re tough to remove. Jobs take two to four weeks.

His best tip for making a bathroom look up-to-date: frameless shower doors, which cost $800 to $1,200, installed. “It’s just a cool, clean look,” he said.

Meredith Hall, president of Hallmark Kitchens and Baths in Bethesda, Md., said their typical gut-and-rehab starts at $15,000 and runs “to the sky.” Work takes two to six weeks.

Both companies typically replace the copper water pipes and the drain lines. “You’re never going to get a better chance to take a look at your plumbing than when the floor is removed,” Hall said.

His best tip: Install a hand-held shower in the tub serving the second bathroom. It’s great for bathing young children.

Just remember that you stand to lose 20 percent of your investment — or more — upon resale.