More Bang for Your Buck: Home Improvements

(WSVN) - Making your house into a home; there's nothing easy about it! And it could also be pretty expensive. So what is the best way to improve your home improvement project?

It's probably not what you think.

"Home office, painting, significant improvement to a bathroom or a kitchen; you think that those were all things that would add tremendous value to your home? We've got news for you. Your absolutely wrong!"

Financial expert Suze Orman says there's a good rule of thumb to remember:

For every dollar you do in improvements, you can only expect to recapture 75 to 80 cents.

If your current house isn't quite your dream house, experts suggest: adding a bathroom, adding a new room, landscaping or enclosing a garage.

There are also some little projects you can bang out, that will save you in the end.

Suze says, "Elbow grease, little things when you do 5 thousand dollars to replace things like the faucet on the sink rather than replacing the entire sink with the faucets."

But remember, things always cost more than you think.

So if you have a 50 thousand dollar budget, you better plan on a project that's only gonna be about 25 thousand dollars.

And be wary of a fixer-upper.

"Be very careful. Do you have the skills to fix up a house?"

"And if you look at construction costs, if you look at how many people you have to hire and their cost to fix this up you might have been just better of truthfully buying a house that was already fixed up to your needs."

That's advice you can take to the bank.

(Copyright 2002 Sunbeam Television Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)