Our estimate for master bath is currently coming in at about 4% of our home value, which I guess is about right. That isn't a total remodel - we are keeping the tub and not moving any walls, but pretty much everything else is changing. I think it also included repainting the adjoining master bedroom, too. Of course, we haven't finalized all of our fixtures and materials yet, so we could go over our allowances and have the price increase. Or it could decrease, I guess :-)

Thanks for this information. I am always wondering if the investment is worth it.
I think mine is going to be about 5% of the present value. We are moving a wall and redoing all the drywall. I am doing all the tearout.

I'd say the 5% rule is probably something made up regionally.

I can say with complete certainty that with NYC home costs, my bathroom remodels haven't come anywhere near 5% of the value. But the toilet costs the same in NYC as it does in Florida or North Dakota. Does that mean that if you have a home worth much less, its not worth remodeling a bath at all?

If people here spent 5% of their home value on bathroom renovations they would DEFINITELY be over investing in that renovation. So it really depends on how much your home can possibly appreciate in the first place.

I wouldn't use this rule to make any financial decisions.

"If people here spent 5% of their home value on bathroom renovations they would DEFINITELY be over investing in that renovation. So it really depends on how much your home can possibly appreciate in the first place."

Yeah, totally agree. The numbers don't jive on the high end (which is all of NYC), but in other markets they may - which is why I was curious. Hopefully, people who chime in will give an idea of what region they live in. The cost of labor will be a big factor. Here in Tejas, labor is pretty cheap (and generally plentiful). In places like NYC, it's far more expensive.

I think the overall idea is to keep your costs in line with the home value... and a percentage could give people a place to start, but would never become a rule without some sort of scaling. I won't come close to our 5%, but I probably could if I hired it out.

Laura

We spent $20K on materials and DIY-ed it. We paid $300K for the house and expect to improve it to be a $500K house when we're done. We live in a mid-size city in the midwest. I don't know how the math works on that $20K/500K or $40K ("cost" with labor)/300K or something in between??

My master bath was between 3% - 4% of current home value -- also in NYC area so spending 5% would really be a lot. My kitchen renovation was about 11% of current home value.

Sorry, I forgot to add. My master bath cost about 1.8% of the value of my house. I was doing a total overhaul of the house including all mechanicals and such so its hard to be exact but I tried to include as much as I think would be expected (permits, plumbing, fixtures, etc.) if I had done it alone.

We don't have a master bath - just a rather large hall bath, and I have no doubt that we will have overimproved for the neighborhood. We live in a working class area with a mix of single and multi-family housing. We love the area though and have no plans to leave it.

We did splurge on some areas (fixtures mostly) and went super low budget on other areas (tile). What we could have gotten on the $15k for a 100+ sf bath (a huge luxury in this area to begin with) would have been a lot of fiberglass and home depot grade faucets and wasted space. To me it wouldn't have been worth the bother/hassle to end up with crap for $15k. Instead we have a cast iron clawfoot tub, a nice walk in shower and a pair of sinks with granite remnant countertops and a bathroom in a classic style that will last the rest of our lives. For the extra $10k (half the price of a mid-grade car) will have a bathroom that is beautiful, classic, functional and durable. I'd rather share my almost 7 year old honda accord with my husband than have a new car and a cruddy bath.

When we're done we'll have spent $13K on material, and we're DIY'ing the job, so no labor costs. Our house is, conservatively, worth $800K. So we're spending 1 1/2% of the value of the house on our remodel. We're in the northern VA suburbs of DC.

We splurged on tile, big time. All natural stone, with lots of accents. Our window is high end, Marvin, almost $800 for that.

Ok, I guess I'll be the first to go over on this one...my master bath remodel is about 10% of my condo value now. Labor is 5% and all the cool stuff is the other 5% . And I don't care what the experts say.

I'm not planning to move from here so the only value I'm concerned with is the value of a really cool, wonderful master bath in my home. The resale value means little to me.

Hi,

I'm with bonnieg011 on overspending. I paid 148K for my townhouse and have probably spent 10K on the Master bath alone (Marble walk in shower, marble floor and counter top, new toilet, vanity, fixtures, etc.). When I bought the unit it was in immaculate condition but all the original fixtures and appliances from 1969 (avocado green bath and gold stove!).

Although I'm afraid to see my total expenditure when everything is done and I'm sure I would never get close to my investment back on resale, I don't envision moving and hope my new home is wonderful!

Karen

We completely redid our bathroom for about $9,000, which is about 4% of the value of the house. We put in new cabinets, a granite countertop, new sink, toilet and bath/shower component, exhaust fan, new door, new lighting, beadboard on bottom half of walls, and plumbing fixtures, We had it done by a fellow who has done wonderful work for us before. We didn't put in glass tub doors or tile, the floor was in good shape, and we didn't need to move any walls - all of which helped considerably. I'll post pictures as soon as all the painting is finished. We're also waiting on a new countertop as the one we received had a crack in it. We got all of our materials from Lowes - they were great. We went back to them after our kitchen remodel because we had such good luck with them then.

Wow, okay, I'm on the low end. My house is worth about $325K in a Boston suburb. I thinik we've spent about $2500 on the master bath, so I guess that's 0.75% -

New shower (prefab, not tile)
New vanity
New toilet
New faucet and towel bars
New mirror
New light fixture
New tile floor and half way up the walls

We did it all DIY, and it looks really pretty (well, it will when we finish it). It's a really tiny bathroom, and we got a deal on the tile at a closeout store. It's the last room in the house to be redone, so we were really trying to keep in affordable.

Kristen

My master bath remodel was about 2.5% of my home's value. I think it's difficult to compare regionally because there's probably an absolute value, perhaps $9,000-$10,000, that would be the minimum for a complete, non-diy renovation (demolition to the studs, rework plumbing & electrical, purchase & install fixtures and tile). This might be 10% of a 100,000 home and therefore way out of line according to the book the OP referenced, or 1% of a million-dollar home and therefore well within the limit for seeing those dollars returned when the house is sold.

My first estimate, from a design/build firm, was around 5% of my home's value, which I thought was way too much to spend for the work that was going to be done.

I live in a part of California where a million dollars buys a 3BR 1BA home that needs a lot of work, but putting 5% (50K) into renovating that 1 bathroom would be insane.

Yes, I think a lot depends upon region and house price. My original 4% number came from a $25k quote for the bathroom changes, including labor and materials, and a value of $600k. Value is sort of a guess (I think we got it from Zillow) since part of the reason we're remodeling is we don't want to deal with selling! That's the value before any remodeling. We're in the Portland, OR area.

I've not done such a great job of tracking expenditures on my project, but I think I'll be pushing $25k by the time I'm done with my master suite. It's a DIY gut to the studs remodel of a 12x25 room dividing off a 12x9 bath, so fairly extensive, but the DIY factor is keeping costs down a bit. Percentage-wise, it's 4-5% based on purchase price 18 months ago plus added value from a major kitchen overhaul ($550k-ish now). I'm also in Portland, OR.

I agree that there's somewhat of a fixed cost base, and fixtures and furniture are fairly constant, so the more expensive the house, the more likely the percentage will decrease slightly. Although higher value homes usually get higher value fixtures and such, so maybe that's not really true. Labor charges are locally dependent so that's not predictable although you can argue that areas with higher value homes will have higher labor charges.

A quick re-read of all this and I realize I've not added anything useful to this discussion so I'm going with 4.73%, final answer.

Joe