Have a 3/2 house in the South Knoll area near Gabbard. Right in the middle of the student housing and Air BNB stuff near Gabbard park. I am about to start on a remodel/addition to the house completely unrelated to any potential resale value or "investment" opportunity, but as I started absorbing the costs of the project it has made me curious what % of the money I put into this money pit I will get back when/if we ever resale. Anyone have any rule of thumbs or ideas? I am open to guestimates + open to any other thoughts or suggestions. While I typically do my own work on my houses I am actually using contractors/remodelers/designers for reasons that are not germane to this topic (but has significantly increased the cost of the project).

What is being done: Closing in the current garage and then Adding a 10x12 or 12x12 bedroom and a small 3/4th bathroom. This will also create a small "office space" room that is about 9x9 or 9x10 which potentially could end up being an actual small bedroom at resale.

So essentially the house would go from a 3/2 with garage (small that can't fit any large vehicles) to a 4/3 with a "bonus room" or a 5/3 with one of the bedrooms being pretty small.

How much does losing the garage hurt me on resale vs the addition of the bedroom/bathroom? Almost every house in this area has the garage closed in so I feel like the "comps" would be similar. What % of the cost of this do you think I will make back on the resale (if any)? Not expecting any firm numbers but just seeing what the consensus is.

Love any feedback.

No idea on your question, but in order to count a bedroom in a listing it needs a closet and a window. I believe it also needs to be connected to the central AC.

Appreciate the response. Technically the "bonus" room will meet the definition of a legal bedroom (I found this document at one point and use it for reference). But due to particularities of the layout most reasonable homeowners would consider it more of a bonus room than a bedroom. However in my mostly rental neighborhood most landlords would certainly consider it as a place to put a college student and charge rent! This is why I toggle back and forth in my mind between bonus room and 5th bedroom.

But either way there will be four fully functional bedrooms and 3 bathrooms minus a garage. That is the value calculation I can't really quantify in my mind.

Many many moons ago an appraiser told me if the new rooms have been connected to the HVAC and electrical systems of the house it's valued at the same square foot price as the original home. Otherwise it's just a garage value add. We did not discuss the value loss of the garage space but sounds like the comps are there in your situation.

I'm not an appraiser or realtor so this post is worth what you paid for it.

How are you going to market the house ?

As SFH or as a student rental ?

In CS you can generally expect $500-$700 per bedroom dep lending on location but the bathroom part can be tricky because many want their own bathroom on rentals. I do maintenance/repairs/make readies for 10 rentals in BCS and 3 of them have garages converted to living spaces. I think the lowest one is getting $500 per bedroom out by rellis or $2000 on 4br house and the highest one is getting around $2700 in east gate on a 4 bedroom that lacks a garage. Most students will not care about the lack of garage but consider adding a storage building in the back yard to still have somewhere to store "stuff"

SteveBott said:

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Many many moons ago an appraiser told me if the new rooms have been connected to the HVAC and electrical systems of the house it's valued at the same square foot price as the original home. Otherwise it's just a garage value add. We did not discuss the value loss of the garage space but sounds like the comps are there in your situation.

I'm not an appraiser or realtor so this post is worth what you paid for it.

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Ever have an issue with the appraiser not calling it a bedroom because it lacked a hallway going to it ?

I ran into this on a remodel where the bedroom had a closet and 2 windows but connected to a living room and that was his argument .

I have not ran into that scenario. It's been years since I had a garage conversion. But that sounds like an appraiser problem. There used to be some quirky ones out there. Still are in VA.

Your observations track with what I see...garage's aren't really a big deal for rental homes in our area as long as there is somewhere to park outside.

We aren't doing the remodel with plans for selling anytime soon (so this is mostly an academic question for my own curiosity) but I would expect the house to be a rental whenever it is sold in the future. There are a few leftover houses that still have a family in them, but pretty much the entire neighborhood is rental of some sort. This is why I think having more beds/baths (and less garage) will ultimately be a net benefit. But curious if that means I will get 20% of my money out of the remodel or 80%. Just thought someone on here may have ran this calculation before and had some thoughts.

Appreciate the responses and feedback!

To get some specific ROI numbers you need an appraiser or RE agent. There are several here of both but you might have to wait till next week. More traffic then as opposed to holiday weekend. Here is the general rule of thumb attached