We are doing a major home renovation this Winter. It should provide fodder for several blog posts over the next year (possibly including one from my contractor) and lots of fun pictures for the blog. This first post will be a pretty general introduction to the financial aspects of home renovations, but future posts will get into all kinds of details. Let's outline a few principles to keep in mind if you are considering a home renovation.
#1 Housing Is Mostly a Consumption Item
A house is an investment that can go up in value and “pays dividends” in the form of saved rental payments. It is often leveraged, and the mortgage introduces a completely separate financial instrument. Paying down a mortgage is often one of your best guaranteed return investments as a mortgage functions as a negative bond. However, many aspects of your house are really consumption items. They are simply items you are using up in living your life.
It's fine to consume stuff; you don't need to feel guilty about it. In fact, I have a hobby that is all about consumption. Due to the friction inherent in the passage through slot canyons, every piece of gear you take in there is disposable. Your boots and pack are good for about a season, you replace your gloves every couple of canyons, knee pads last a week (two if you cover them in roofing sealant) you might get two years out of a harness etc. Your house is the same way. That toilet, paint, carpet, and windows are being slowly used up. If you spend too much of your income on stuff going down in value, you're never going to build wealth.
#2 You Don't Increase the Value of the Home by the Cost of the Renovation
A lot of people mistakenly think they'll get the cost of the renovation back out of the house when they sell. That is never the case.
First, even if you sold the house right after you renovate, you never get 100 cents back on the dollar. It varies by the upgrade, but it generally looks something like this:
- Minor bath remodel: 102%
- Landscaping: 100%
- Minor kitchen remodel: 99%
- Exterior improvements: 96%
- Attic bedroom conversion: 94%
- Major bath remodel: 93%
- Major kitchen remodel: 91%
- Deck addition: 90%
- Basement remodel: 90%
- Windows: 90%
- Family room addition: 83%
- Bonus room updates: 73%
- Living room updates (decor): 66%
- Bedroom updates: 52%
- Living room updates (walls and floors): 40%
However, these estimates can have a HUGE range. For instance, some sources say a major kitchen remodel really only has a return on investment of 54%. “Invisible” improvements like replacing the A/C and water heater are even worse. They return almost no value, it's just a major problem trying to sell if they're broken. A roof is similar. Buyers just expect the roof to not leak. You don't get any credit for replacing it last year versus ten years ago.
In addition, what your neighbors are doing can have a huge influence, too. Bringing your home up to par with the neighborhood has a higher return on investment than making your home the nicest one in the neighborhood. At any rate, the point is that some percentage of the renovation increases the value of the home. The rest is just consumption. Thus, a renovation is almost never a good investment unless it must be done in order to sell the house, and even then it probably has a negative return on investment.
Second, as soon as you renovate, the new stuff starts dropping in value. That 66% return on investment for updating your living room decor is on day one. Two years later it might be 30%.
#3 Renovation Is Usually Optional
It was interesting to sit down with our friend the general contractor (Stevens General Contractors) to discuss this project. The first question was, “What are your needs?” Wrong question to ask The White Coat Investor. I quickly clarified that NONE of this was a need. This is a house that had empty rooms for the first two years we owned it. It still meets all of our personal and business needs. We can continue to run this multi-million dollar business off the dining room table and a downstairs bedroom as we have for the last eight years.
There is no requirement that you furnish every room in your house as soon as you buy it. Nor is there a requirement to do a renovation. Pretty much ever.
#4 Renovation Is a Hassle
This was actually the biggest argument for me against doing a renovation. You have three choices.
You can do the work yourself. This sucks because it is time you could have used to generate income with your main work or side gig or better yet, time you could have spent doing something you enjoy. Plus, you'll probably do a crappy job of it because this isn't your life's work.
You can live in a house where worker dudes show up every morning at 7 or 8 and leave at 5 or 6 every evening, dealing with the noise, intrusion of privacy, security issues, loss of use of some of your space, and hassle of moving stuff around as the workers go from one area to another. My contractor tells me they do most kitchen renovations in the summer, moving the fridge and microwave into the garage and the family does a lot of grilling on the back deck and eating out.
You can move out. Nobody likes moving. It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. Plus, you're now paying for two houses during the renovation. Plus, most renovations last less than a year and most rental contracts are a year-long, leaving limited options. One benefit of moving, as military folks know, is its anti-hoarding effect. It's a lot easier to throw stuff away if you have to actually box it up and carry it around. Plus, a big renovation usually gets you a big dumpster in your driveway for maximum decluttering ease.
#5 Everybody Has to Get Something
Due to the massive cost and hassle of doing this, everybody in the family has to get something they want out of it. The impetus behind the remodel is to redo the kitchen. When we moved in back in 2010, Katie said the kitchen would do for now but she wanted more storage in it and more space. “Fine,” I said. “We'll do it when we can afford it.” Well, there's no doubt we can now afford it. So here we go. But renovations usually become linked.
“Well, if we're going to do that, let's do this too.”
It's usually cheaper to do it all at once rather than piecemeal, as it offers a lot of economies of scale. It's cheaper to paint three rooms all at once than one room at a time each year. For instance, we've done some work over the last few years — wood floors, garage doors, a new door, and some new windows. Unfortunately, pretty much all of that will be ripped out during this renovation. It is best to know what the end product looks like before you begin if you want to do it as inexpensively as possible.
In this renovation, we all get something. Katie gets her new kitchen, a big pantry, and a nicer bath. I get a much larger garage and a larger yard without my current landscaping problems. WCI gets dedicated office space and a sound-proofed recording studio. The kids get a slide, a fire pole, a game room, a toy room, and a nice theatre room. The extended family gets that other guest room (currently a makeshift podcasting studio) back. My contractor says this is the way it usually goes and he is often surprised to see what the item is that finally gets the most reticent member of the family on board. The firepole is clearly what tipped it over the edge for me and the rest of the kids.
Our Plans
Our process started nearly a year ago, just with some dreaming and scheming and discussion. Our general contractor is a good friend. Not the cheapest guy in town, but I know where he lives so at least I know he's not going to take the money and run. The first time we actually put down money and committed to some dates on the schedule was in March, when we forked out $5K for plans.
Interestingly, the architect is actually the original architect for the house, so that made things a bit easier. Every couple of weeks the contractor and the architect come over with a new set of drawings and we tell them what we like and don't like. They tell us what's possible. And we send them back to the drawing board. There is usually a problem area that takes the most work. In our case, it was access to the new office space, but after four iterations, we found something that would work.
In July, we met with the contractor again about pricing. This wasn't a complete mystery, as I had been asking for general estimates as we went along. So while I had sticker shock several times already, most of it has worn off, although it still seems a ridiculous sum to someone who was donating plasma for food in college. The pricing process is also eased by the fact that a large portion of our remodel is similar to our contractor's house down the street. He knows exactly what he paid and so can estimate his costs pretty effectively. Once we knew the range of price we're looking at, we could decide if we wanted to scale back the project to save money.
We didn't actually set a budget for this. Our only goal was to cash flow it. We didn't want to borrow any money and we didn't want to have to raid investments for it. So after maxing out the Roth IRAs, HSAs, 401(k)s, and DB/CB Plan for the year and putting in the tax-advantaged amount into 529s (as well as a couple of taxable investments) we stopped investing in about May and started piling up money. We paid our taxes a little ahead, got a little ahead on our usual charitable contributions, stopped saving for vacations and directed every spare dollar into the renovation fund. By the time we moved out and broke ground in October, we had almost all of the cost sitting in cash in a money market fund. The rest will be easily saved during the 4-6 months the renovation will take. Although we'll make some large payments as we go along, the largest payments are backloaded, as they should be.
Financially speaking, doing a renovation at this point in our lives is pretty easy. We don't have any debt. We're financially independent (i.e. essentially done saving for retirement). Our kids' college funds are already beyond their initial goal and well on track for the new, higher goal. We've already bought the luxury outdoor equipment, toys, and trips we really wanted. We're giving away more and more money to charity every year. Our income continues to rise and we've basically run out of other financial goals. So, while completely optional, it seems reasonable to spend some money (okay, A LOT of money) on the last thing we can think of that could possibly make us any happier.
The renovation will cost more than we paid for our house. More than it is currently worth. In fact, more than twice what we paid for it originally. That's what happens when you redesign your entire lot, remove every piece of landscaping, do work on all four walls of the home and the roof, add a fair amount of square footage, move a bunch of walls around, and basically make everything two steps nicer than it was originally.
Will it be worth it? I figure about 2/3 of it will come back to us in increased value of the home. The rest will just be consumed. We can certainly afford to consume that portion. The marginal utility of additional wealth has steadily dropped for us over the years. That's the way it usually goes — you end up having to spend more and more money to get the same amount of increased happiness from doing so. But if you can afford it, you want it, and you can meet all your other financial goals in spite of it, why not? I think at this point we're far more likely to regret not doing it than doing it, so here we go!
Some Home Renovation Advice for You
Now, we're a bit of an unusual example, even among high-income professionals. Not counting major home renovations, we're living on less than 10% of our income and give away more than that each year. I don't think you have to be in our situation before you can renovate your home. But I think there are a few guidelines you should follow:
- No renovations while you have consumer debt or student loans. You've got better uses for your money.
- No renovations while you have a mortgage > 2X gross income. You're already house poor, don't make it worse.
- Cash flow at least the amount that the renovation won't increase the value of the home. For us, I figure that's about 1/3 of the cost. I don't think it's the end of the world to borrow the rest, as long as it doesn't take you over the mortgage < 2X gross income figure. Saving money is good for you. If you can't save up 1/3 of the amount of the renovation in a year or two, you are probably doing too much.
- No renovations if it will significantly slow you from meeting your reasonable financial goals. If this pushes retirement back a decade, that probably isn't worth it.
- Think long term. We've had other houses that we upgraded just in time to move out of it. You're much better off enjoying your renovations for a while, especially since you never get 100% of the cost out of it when you sell. I told Katie we're not doing anything to the house for a decade afterward, so we need to be thinking about anything else we might want and do it now. We're also configuring the house to allow us to stay in it long-term. We might be 40-something and healthy now, but there's no guarantee that we can climb stairs in a decade or two. The firepole is easily convertible to an elevator. The WCI office space is easily convertible into an accessory dwelling unit (immediately for someone we're willing to share living space with, but a separate entrance would need to be constructed to make it a great ski rental.)
[Update Prior to Publication: Since this was written months ago and its publication today, we've moved out, the project has started, the house has been demolished and lots of decisions have been made. But I'm not going to talk about all that today or in the comments on this post lest I have nothing else to write about it! More details in posts to come.]
What do you think? Have you done a major remodel? What did you like and dislike about the project? Any tips for us and others? Comment below!
Our 20 year old house desperately needs a new deck – the current one is rotting – so in this case the renovation would not be adding value, just eliminating a real negative. We were so burned on a renovation job early on in our house’s history that we are extremely reluctant to invite this chaos in our lives again. About 17 years ago, we added a French window to our office. We engaged the same guy who had done the windows in the house three years previously as a new build, not even getting counter bids. Unfortunately, he seemed to have lost the ability to set windows in the intervening three years. He first ordered frames that didn’t match our originals, and got angry and sulky when we objected. The windows took ages to set and were covered in his blood when he finished. One day he forgot his glasses inside our house, and rather than knock on our door to retrieve them, decided to enter through the new doors, which he had kept a key to. Cue horrible stand-off with my husband shouting at him to surrender his additional keys to our windows. We were nervous wrecks after that job.
Additionally, all the rooms in the house need to be repainted (That’s an easy job that I could do – but – I don’t).
We live in a LCOL area and any penny put into our house is down the drain.
Most people need to come up with large justifications for spending money like this. You are not one of those people. However you do sound guilty for the consumption. When you are feeling bad try to remember how many people are getting paid downstream.
To the other 99% of people we should delay things like this for as long as possible. When we moved into our new house there were a buch of things I would loved to have done. I purposely said lets live with them for a while ans see what is important. Delaying is almost as good because I feel you spend less in the end. Similar to (On a smaller scale) putting things in the amazon wish list instead of impulse buying it right away.
Slide and fire pole in the house? That is one of the more awesome things I have heard of! Hope it does not raise your insurance too much?
I know it was not the focus of the post and maybe you discussed it elsewhere but with such a major project did you consider moving? Or was the stuff you wanted too hard to find fire pole and soundproof studio?
Thanks for the post. I hope it gets done on time and on budget!
Yes considered moving but love the neighborhood and lot. Didn’t even look for firepoles and studios!
When you landscape your modified outside space, please use native plants. Native birds, pollinators, & other wildlife need native plants. For example, monarch butterflies depend on milkweed for their caterpillars.
People need native wildlife, especially the pollinators that are essential for food production.
WildOnes.org
Well, it certainly won’t be scrub oak, I’ll tell you that.
Great! Scrub oak is not native to Utah (I think that’s where you are).
https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=QUBE5
But there are lots of other great choices!
https://www.wildflower.org/collections/collection.php?start=0&collection=UT&pagecount=10&pagecount=100
I’d be surprised if scrub oak isn’t native given the mountains are covered in it. Maybe what you call scrub oak is different from what I call scrub oak.
Ah yes, here it is: Gambel Oak, Quercus Gambelii, the only Oak (genus = Quercus) native to Northern Utah, and the only deciduous Oak native to any part of Utah . Around Salt Lake it’s the dominant plant between 5,000 and 7,000 feet.
Yes, there are other native plants but very little of it grows anything I’m interested in eating.
If it makes you feel better 1/3 of the lot is completely covered with native plants now and will remain that way by city mandate.
The best part about native plants is not needing to water them! The worst is that they thrive and need to be trimmed and thinned frequently. We did an all native landscaping job 7 years ago and proceeded to neglect it as much as possible. It has thrived.
I went on a firehouse tour with the kids once and they said they don’t do firepoles any more due to injuries. You’ll have to let us know the first time someone breaks an ankle.
We did two home remodels ourselves (e.g. new trim, new crown molding, new doors, new floors, new light fixtures and ceiling fans, extensive caulking and painting). Since they were both almost entirely DIY (in order to save money and because we’re very picky about such things) and our work looked very good, both projects increased the value of the homes by significantly more than the cost, and we didn’t pay any taxes on either sale due to the primary residence exclusion. But it was a lot of work, and I don’t think that my wife or I are interested in doing anything on that scale again.
So we just finished up our whole house reno in 2018. A renovation is more costly IMO that building from scratch (which we have also done), but also “more fun” because you get to see the transformation, particularly when you are starting out with 1980s crazy decor…..These are my thoughts: 1) Agree it should be cash flowed. we cash flowed. I also had no budget. We also spent more than we paid for the house. But IMO you should make the changes YOU want, not what someone else may want. This is your house. (yes i’m in the camp that a home is not an investment, but a consumable liability that you live in). Some things are just money sucks (completely replaced every single window and door$$$, pouring cement to level floors, entire new HVAC system $$$) but some things I just love (my kitchen faucet$$$, smart home features, my shower, etc….) 2) i wished we could have moved out but we have dogs so that was a rate limiting step trying to find a rental, also the timeline is partly an unknown. do you rent for 6 months? 9 months? a year? we were mostly on schedule but then fell behind about three weeks due to hurricane causing closures and delays (workers evacuated, couldn’t get back, gas stations closed longer than expected, materials delayed, etc). ….so we lived through living in it which at some point meant our bed was in the kitchen…but i have to say to have my finger on the pulse EVERY SINGLE DAY is key. you catch lots of mistakes that can get corrected on the spot or ASAP. if you move out i highly suggest to walk through EVERY SINGLE DAY (we also did this for our new build where we were living down the street). I showed up one day and they installed someone else’s cabinets in my laundry room. or I showed up one day and they installed someone else’s hardware on all the cabinets (even though i left all my hardware out on the counter above each cabinet and in the drawers) in three different room (and oh by the way my hardware had different screw pattern so they had to remake ALL my cabinet doors and drawers again (costly mistake for them and someone lost their job….)……. oh and i almost forgot…after all this then you want to buy all new furniture and window treatments ($$$$$$$$$$$$$$)…….
The only advice I can give you is to keep an eye on the work. Don’t trust your contractor that everything will be done well. Laborers will make mistakes that your contractor may not catch so be intimately involved in the project. Show up a few times per week with your contractor so that he can show you around on what is going on. No one cares about your home as much as you do.
Remodeling sucks. It is a major hassle and very expensive. But, if you have the money and want something specific, remodeling is the only way to go.
Congrats and good luck 🙂
I give you guys a lot of credit for being able to catch their mistakes… I wouldn’t know what IS the mistake – have no clue how the construction supposed to work etc :((
Here is a list of some mistakes we found.
1) One exterior wall had windows that required reframing and one of the gaps between the windows was inaccurately measured which we caught during one of my inspections
2) One of the walls that was built was not exactly 90 degrees which unfortunately we only caught once the tiles were put down. If we did not see it early enough it would have required extra work. Instead we had them realign the wall
3) In the master bathroom shower, the shower seat was too high and required lowering. Which we caught nice and early and before any tile work came up
4) Missing some outlets where we wanted them, and caught it before sheetrock went up.
5) misaligned outlets in one for the rooms again caught before sheetrock went up.
6) Idiotic lighting, putting up too many switches in the wrong places
It did not take much skill or knowledge other than keeping eyes open and not trusting that the job will be flawless. The earlier you catch those mistakes the cheaper it is to rectify.
You make some great points in this about remodeling. We are in the process of building a new home. I love the idea of having a recording studio, half for music and half for video with a red light on the door meaning keep out I’m recording. I think I will add that into my plans, thanks. We are doing a lot of repair work around the house that I suspect will top $30k as I have let things go as I have been travelling in my retirement years. These need to be fixed before we sell the house. I won’t likely get the money back, but will have an easier time selling and won’t have to make any concessions in the offer.
I have the solution to the remodeling hassle. We are going away for a month and letting the workers do the work without bothering us. They are on it now as I travel to Southern California.
I’m going to add this to Fawcett’s Favorites on Monday
Dr. Cory S. fawcett
Prescription for Financial Success
We have done renovations that were an alternative to moving to a bigger house. Both would have been hassles but the reno was not too bad.
Agree that it is hard to generalize about payback. In our neighborhood there is a steady business of teardowns or massive renovations then selling for a profit. I don’t know the costs of the work, so I don’t know how much profit but builders keep doing it so they think they are doing well. If the house is well below the neighborhood then I suspect some work could be profitable. Your example of a broken air conditioning system or leaking roof. Selling a house in bad condition could lead to a severe discount as many buyers would not consider it. Those who might be willing to buy would take off more than the cost of the repairs to reflect the diminished market value.
If you are in a climate where every house has a nice big pool and your house has none then you could even profit from what is usually a bad investment.
I have friends who did the move out and total renovation approach. They are happy with the result but is a big production. Plus, you need to make frequent visits to let the builders know you are keeping a close eye on the work.
Wait, you can get contractors to show up at 8 and work till 5? What kind of utopia is this?! Maybe I should call your contractor since we live only a few miles away from you
He’s all yours come next May. 🙂
He also just volunteered as staff for WCICON20, so if you’re going to that you can meet him there too.
You bet I will be there. Will look for him.
When we first owned a home and I was kvetching to my college roommate about contractors and their schedules, she sent me a great article by some guy in the exurban DC area. he found that if he went to the local diner at the right time and day he could catch all of his contractors there eating lunch and they could not possibly say “can’t talk to you right now in the middle of something.” And he didn’t have to count on them answering their phone.
First off good luck with the renovation. We’ve done some minor stuff since our house is relatively new and that was a chore (changing carpet to hardwood, some repainting) so I can’t imagine doing a whole house reno.
Some of the things you mention are “repairs” more than renovation. For example replacing central air units or water heaters.
I’m a bit of an audiophile so here are a few tips for those thinking about a theater room (since you mentioned it. Not sure if you need these tips).
1. Depending on your amount of space consider a media room vs. a dedicated theater. A dedicated theater can be imposing since you go in there ONLY to watch a movie but can’t really spend time there. I put a theater area in my basement which is open to the playroom on the other side. This is nice since I can have a game going on the projector while having friends over and you’re not confined to sitting in the theater.
2. There’s a law of diminishing returns with AV Gear. a $5000 speaker system is maybe twice as good as a $2500 speaker system. However a $10000 system is not twice as good as a $5000 one.
3. There are several “internet direct” brands of AV equipment where you can save money over comparable brands you can get in the store. For example Axiom or Aperion vs. buying Paradigm or B&W.
4. Get as big a projector screen as you can since unlike TVs it’s not that expensive to add a few inches.
5. If you want less headache your theater guy can just do everything. However, a way to save some money is to have a guy just run the wires for the surround speakers and other cabling through the walls then you install and set up the gear yourself.
6. To bring this back finance. All this stuff depreciates and is only purely for your enjoyment much like the $50k car over the 5k car!
I delayed our kitchen remodel for years, and I kept delaying until my wife couldn’t stand it any longer. Our galley kitchen with 80s formica was a very sad beige blah sight. The spring hinges on the kitchen cabinets had such short screws that the particle board cabinet doors kept stripping, and I had to move the hinges two inches up every few years. My wife tolerated this while the kids were in private school, knowing that we couldn’t afford both private school and a new kitchen. But when dual GE ovens both crapped out on us, and I suggested using the extra-large toaster over, she finally put her foot down.
Now she has the kitchen she’s always wanted, with Wolf red-knobbed burners, and the matching Sub-zero refrigerator, and the super-quiet dishwasher. We also tore down the galley in favor of a huge island as the only separation between the kitchen and the dining room. Now, four years later, the new kitchen has been completely worth the hassle and the price.
Fortunately, the remodel started just as the private school tuitions were ending.
How much did your Kitchen reno cost?
With Sub Zero and Wolf appliances? Probably a low six figure amount.
After a shower remodel, a few suggestions:
Anything that is additional like a grab bar, a niche, a bench, etc-make sure the fees for those are itemized in case any of them cannot be done for structural reasons
If you use FLOOR & DECOR-their contractors were super but you are paying their installation company to refer the job to a general contractor adding another layer of costs
i used F&D but only for purchase. i bought and hauled all the tile (entire house flooring and bathrooms) myself and then just paid for install with my contractor. plus i got all the points and cash back on my CC. I did this with ALL materials other than drywall and lumber. I learned this after building first house from scratch…there is so much markup on everything (like a toilet!) so i bought all my own stuff. with free delivery now with most online vendors direct to your house there is very little work involved to save money this way.
Good luck on the renovation I cannot wait to hear how it works out. It can be extremely stressful and easily go off budget.
We completely renovated our beach house. It took years to get the plans and approvals. Local contractors estimates were about 1/3 higher than an off the Cape contractor we went with. His work was slow but end product was worth it.
There were many surprises additional costs such as septic repair, rotten header, flashing needing replacement. The difficult part was the work was 80 miles from our home so it requires frequent pictures and trips down to make sure things were going as planned. The biggest issue that came up was the new maple hardwood floors. We requested select maple, the contractor used a different supplier and instead installed common maple. The contractor took responsibility, tore out the floor and put in select maple. Fortunately for him the supplier agreed that what they provided was indeed not select maple and he was reimbursed.
In the end we now have an amazing summer home that we love going to, we limit the use to 2 weeks and rent in out the remaing weeks of the summer and go down during the off-season for “Repairs and maintenance” during the weekends. Prior to renovations it rented at $1500 per week and was difficult to rent. Now it goes for $3500 per week and we had no problem renting it this past summer.
Our original basis was $300k, renovations $230 and appraisal came in at $570k.
It is working out nicely, the passive loss generated offsets our other properties passive gains, 3-4 weeks of rental results in the break even point which does not factor in property appreciation. So in the end the numbers work out but was it worth the hassle? Only time will tell.
Interesting that you use “repairs and maintenance” to beat the 14 day rule. Might be a little tricky to defend in an audit, but seems low risk for that.
Hey WCI,
Wondering what your advice would be….
My wife and I have no debt other than our current mortgage. We did a construction to perm Loan for a large addition. The future value by the appraiser, which was used to determine the LTV, came back higher than our purchase price plus cost of addition. That meant that we didn’t owe anything to the bank at the time of close because we had enough equity into the house.
We saved up 1/3 of the total cost of the project and expected to put it into the down payment.
Our new rate is 3.785% and a portion of that mortgage is above the amount you are allowed to deduct on taxes.
We just started the project and have around 8-12 months where we are paying interest only.
Would you put that money into a brokerage account or pay down at leas the amount owed to the bank that won’t be tax deductible?
Thanks!
I’d try to pay cash as much as possible for the project. But if I already had a loan, I might keep it in cash until the total cost of the project becomes clear, then put any extra toward the loan.
I do agree that some home renovations could not increase the value, especially those that are “invisible” to the eye like the water pipes and pumps. But it will be a different story if you have installed a solar panel or remodel the room.
Definitely agree with your comment that housing is mostly a consumption. However, saving money on home improvement products by not overspending in the short term can end up costing more in the long run. Cheap decking material, siding, doors, windows, cabinets, etc, end up costing more in the long run. Buy something that will outlive your time in the house to avoid spending twice on the product and twice on the install.
Classic advice: Buy nice or buy twice.