Home remodeling is a multi-billion-dollar industry that caters to both homeowners who want to upgrade their living spaces and sellers looking to attract buyers.
However, not every project offers a good return on investment, and not every homeowner has the budget for a top-to-bottom makeover.
If you're about to list your property and have a limited budget, experts in home remodeling say you should focus your dollars on these three areas:
Swapping out your front door
Homeowners should consider replacing their front door with a steel one with a dual-frame and a half-glass panel.
A study from the Journal of Light Construction indicated that homeowners spent $2,355 on average in 2024 to replace their front door with a steel one. Doing so added $4,430 on average to the home's resale value, according to the study.
Many homeowners already have steel doors, but they are usually foam-insulated ones with a steel outside coating, said Clayton DeKorne, the journal's chief editor. Those doors do a decent job of keeping out the cold, but they're all one solid unit with no glass in the middle, which is off-putting to some homeowners, DeKorne said.
"They have a door that doesn't let in light, and they're dying to get some light inside," he added.
Adding the steel door "is an aesthetic thing" that improves curb appeal and signals to prospective buyers that the home is warm and welcoming, DeKorne said.
Installing a new door is something homeowners should let a professional contractor handle because it's pretty technical work that involves replacing the trim and jambs and perhaps the door's framing, depending on the home's construction, DeKorne said. The work can usually be finished in a day if the homeowner has the traditional 6-foot, 8-inch door size. It may take a week if the homeowner wants the larger 8-foot door.
Bonus: Swapping out your garage doors offers the best return on investment of all projects, according to the journal, but not everyone has a garage. Homeowners spent $4,513 on average to do this in 2024, and doing so added $8,751 to a home's value. That's a whopping 193.9% return on investment, or ROI.
Banking on that bathroom
Conventional thinking would have homeowners focusing their renovation dollars on either the kitchen or living room, but investment-wise, the best room to renovate is where you shower and shave, one expert said.
"Bathrooms consistently are a positive ROI, where you'll get more than what you put in," Liz Young, CEO of Realm, an online marketplace for homeowners to find contractors, said in an interview.
That's because bathroom makeovers are mostly fixture work, Young said, including replacing the toilet, sink faucet, and shower head and installing floor tile and a new bathtub. A new coat of paint on the walls finishes the job.
Homeowners with one bathroom should do extra planning when renovating because a contractor will often occupy the space for quite a while, forcing the family to find another spot to take baths and brush their teeth.
"It's going to be unusable, and there's no way around it," Young said. "And a lot of times, it's for a couple of weeks."
The average cost for a bathroom renovation last year was $25,251, and it garnered $18,613 in resale value, according to the journal. To be sure, the actual price of a bathroom renovation depends on the size of the space, the availability of local contractors, the fixtures you pick and cost of permits.
Subbing in stone veneer siding
Many homes in the U.S. have vinyl siding, but DeKorne and the journal suggested replacing a portion of that — particularly at the bottom third of the front of the house — with manufactured stone veneer.
Homeowners spent $11,287 on average replacing some vinyl siding with stone veneer in 2024, according to the journal. The work generated an additional $17,291 in resale value, the publication suggested.
The key to replacing vinyl siding with manufactured stone is picking a contractor who can install it correctly, DeKorne said. "A good siding job should have some ability for water to drain behind it."
Adding manufactured stone is a visual thing, DeKorne said. The veneers are made of concrete, but they're shaped to look like stone. They make the home look as if the foundation is extremely sturdy, he said.
As a bonus, cleaning manufactured stone will be much easier than power-washing vinyl siding, DeKorne said.
"It's going to be a lot more forgiving to dust that settles in the air from dust storms or traffic," he said. "They tend to be more dirt-colored to begin with, and they're not a single, uniform color."