The average sale price for detached homes in our community last month was C$1,886,413 (US$1,471,402).

So for a far less than average home, LVP might be acceptable.

But what's more pertinent is what is customary and expected where you live.

What a snarky comment. OP, how long do you plan on living in the house? Good, solid wood floors are timeless and last. You can always put different floors in different areas, and then replace them down the road.

Is a million+ dollar home an average or high-end home where you live? What's normal and expected where you are? Wood is not always the best option for homes, depending on your geography, and expectations of wear. (My sister just put in some gorgeous LVP, but I have my eye on wood-look porcelain tiles when the time comes to change my flooring.)

No, never. It can look good, but—and I'm sure some will disagree with me—it feels inferior . Sure, it's durable, water resistant, and the best of it looks great, but if I was interested in buying a home $1M+ home and it had LVP, my offer would be reduced by the amount to replace the floors. I'm not saying it's a bad product. On the contrary, it performs well, but once you walk on it, it becomes clear that it's not the same as wood (you won't fool anybody into thinking it's real wood)--and that's ok if that's what buyers want. It's just not an option that I'd choose. I spent the last few weeks looking at flooring options and every flooring store I went echoed the same sentiment. Why would you cheap-out a seven-figure home?

Flooring is one of the most important investments that you can make in a home, I'd cut something else before I cut a corner on wood flooring.

IMO, wood-look porcelain would be a far better choice.

I can't get over the fact that you've had to replace hardwood flooring "a couple of times". That is ridiculous. Why don't you focus your time/efforts in resolving the plumbing issues?

The floor is your biggest piece of furniture.

That being said, it depends on where you are located. In some parts a $1million dollar home is a fairly modest small house. Where I am located a $1million home would be a luxury home with high end features. Here, Luxury vinyl tile might work for a small portion of the home, but the main living areas would usually be wood flooring or a high end stone floor such as travertine.

That being said, if you want Luxury Vinyl flooring and are planning on living in the home for a long time, go right ahead, but I don't think it will help your resell value.

A good quality Wood floor should be a floor that last at least 50 years. When building your home, make sure you are hiring professional contractors/plumbers etc. so that any issues will hopefully not arise and if they do, they warranty the repairs.

Also, Walnut is a very soft wood floor and tends to dent easily etc. If you go with a White Oak or something slightly harder, it will stand up to wear and tear better. Not going to make a huge difference if you have a flood though :)

You can get some high end luxury vinyl flooring (some as high as $8.00 sq ft or more). We typically install it in basements or on concrete slabs in our area.

If flooding from busted pipes is your main concern, make sure that you're hiring a good GC. If you’re doing an owner build, be sure that your plumber is reputable and you shouldn’t have any issues.

Consider a whole house generator to help protect your new wood floors. Save the luxury vinyl flooring for your luxury mechanical room or luxury powder room in the luxury basement.

"or on concrete slabs in our area."

Good point to remember -- depending on the construction, wood might be a bad choice (eg on concrete).

In addition to the generator, look into an automatic water shutoff system. I have no experience with them as more than just an interesting idea but it seems worthy of further investigation.

You are comparing LVP (Luxury Vinyl Planks) to hardwood.

So let me try to put LVP in perspective. It's a "plasticy/rubbery/petroleum-based" substance, a man-made chemically-produced product, the same as you see in schools with 12x12 VCT tiles or kitchens with linoleum.

LVP was first conceived to resemble real wood. "Luxury" is just a marketing term, and "Plank" is the shape closer to how real wood comes and may describe a method of installation which is easier for homeowners. It has allowed both an unobtainable product for some (read: hardwood $$) appear obtainable, and simultaneously brought other features that the real product may not be best at, like wood in wet areas and DIY.

The success of other products that have followed a similar trajectory will vary with how closely they resemble the real thing, alongside your thoughts of whether that product is a good fit for you. Consider a few choices like: acrylic tubs to emulate cast iron; wall-to-wall carpet to emulate woven rugs; 4x8 paneling to emulate beadboard; laminate counters to emulate marble; polyurethane moldings to emulate built-up wood profiles; metal garage doors to emulate paneled wood; concrete pavers to emulate stone.

________________

So you can see that LVP, along with some of the other exampled technological inventions, may show up in houses from $100K or $10million, whereas some may only be at one end of the spectrum.

Making a decision about a home, that you are not looking to sell anytime soon, based on what is expected in a particular price range when selling, is a great example of bad decision making.

I have always had hardwood flooring, however, I recently got LVP because of a pet with some incontinence issues. I was a major hardwood flooring snob before I got LVP and I am now a convert. I am not worried about my house which is approaching a $1 million home in an area where the median home price is $275K and I am not worried in the least about selling my home with floors that look gorgeous and brand new years after installation. I assure you there will be a buyer ready to move on my house and, more importantly, I suspect that the LVP floors will look better than wood when that day comes.

ETA: Hardwood floors haven't really been timeless... There have been several periods where the craze has been covering hardwood floors. Most recently in the wall to wall carpeting craze of the 60's and 70's. I honestly don't see that fad coming around again, but then again wide bottom jeans coming back were a shocker for me.

Engineered wood flooring lets you use wider 7-9" planks to get a look you can't easily get with solid flooring. But the core is often softwood and prone to denting. LVP has a stone/plastic core that's harder and doesn't dent. It also is very water-resistant. So what if you could take the real wood veneer layer from engineered wood flooring and use the SPC core of LVP. There are some newer products that are constructed like that. Geowood uses a 1.2mil layer of hardwood(3.2 for engineered-so less) with a SPC core and snap together configuration. Real wood with no repeat variation instead of a printed picture that repeats. Same aluminum oxide clearcoat.

I have nothing against vinyl flooring, really, I grew up in a house built in the 1960s with no hardwood flooring at all and Amtico vinyl that started at the front door and extended through both front and back halls and the kitchen-eating area. And I am putting vinyl tile in the front half of my own house, actual VCT that needs to be polished, because it's appropriate to the house and I like the way it looks. The "luxury" apartment buildings (not walk-ups) that were built throughout my downdown in the 1960s all had vinyl floors throughout, some of them still do.

I am just not really sold on the wood look, or the format. If I could get it in 8 -10 foot long planks, I might be convinced. But I don't like wood flooring made of shorts and I don't like most prefinished hardwood (with some notable exceptions), my preference for hardwood flooring is site finished.

Many things are going to be regional and even micro-regional if that it a word. In my particular several mile radius of city, Every bathroom, including flips, except at the very low end of that scale gets a tile bathroom. Floors and tub/shower surround. Price of the house doesn't matter, and workmanship can be terrible, but it is stone or ceramic tile. A friend who built fairly expensive a custom house in the burbs had acrylic or solid surface surrounds, and vinyl floors put in all bathrooms except the primary, and was not out of the norm for that area. What would turn up a buyers nose in a cheaper neighborhood here, perfectly fine 20 miles away in a nice suburb.

We put LVP in our home when we built 4 years ago for around 2 million not including land costs. Property prices have soared in our neighborhood since then with just sold comps going for well upwards of 4,000,000. In a snowy ski resort climate with big dogs, I don’t regret LVP and it still looks great. Honestly, at our price point, anyone who could afford to buy our home wouldn’t have a problem replacing the floors if they wanted.

Not bashing one vs the other just chiming in to say that if you think LVP is the holy grail when a flood occurs you will be unhappy. Any water damage that gets to the subfloor will mean a new floor - LVP or not. LVP is fine for the occasional spill - not the flood. You are currently now seeing more laminate - yes laminate - faux wood floors being introduced into the market because of the LVP products failing (click in place mostly) over time. Every floor has its place and buyers always need to stay on top of research.

I think your suggestions have been helpful. Thank you all for taking the time.

To Booty Bum, if our flooding problems were so simple.

Our ice maker in the fridge of the home we rentel failed, flooding the main floor.

The pipes under the sink in the home we were renting failed and flooded the first floor again.

A slowly leaking valve finally rusted out under our jacuzzi and flooded our bathroom.

We live in a state where pipes aren’t protected from freezes. A pipe froze one winter and flooded our media room. (We we’re lucky only one froze. Our neighbors weren’t so lucky.)

A hail storm with hail the size of quarters broke and shattered 28 windows. Our upstairs and downstairs were flooded.

We always turn our water off from the street before we leave for vacation. However, the solonoid valve in our clothes washer failed and all the water in our pipes emptied into our laundry room, kitchen, media room, family room and eating areas.

Do you plan on living here very long? If so, put in what YOU want. If in the future it affects resale value, either replace the floors then or price accordingly.

Its a no from me. Its hardwood if not, then engineered wood, if not, porcelain tile floor. I did a porcelain wood plank in my home, no carpeting because I built in humid Florida and I had hardwood in my previous home with dogs and kids. Humidity can do a number on HW and I had a leak and it wasnt good.. I didnt do engineered wood floors because of durability with having a dog (right or wrong). I did a high end porcelain tile in a light neutral wood look with minimal repeats ( its usually more pricey). Its easy to clean, you can actually mop it and its almost impossible to scratch. I need low maintenance. You know when you step into a $1,000,000+ home and you also know when you step on lvp. I think at that price point id expect more. For my home, I chose what worked for me, im not worried about resale, but I also think theres a world of difference between a nice tile and LVP. Take it with a grain of salt, its just my 2c.

"if our flooding problems were so simple . . . family room and eating areas."

Have you considered moving to a different state?

Just my 2 cents...

Speaking as someone who occasionally develops and/or flips homes, some of which are rather high-end, the high-end buyers are not nearly as discerning as people seem to think.

I find, the hardest group to appeal to are those at 75% to 150% of the median house price. Once you start appealing to buyers at 300% of the median house price, they just don't care what kind of flooring is in an existing house. At that price point flooring is comparable to wall color at a lower price point.

You might want to tour a few homes in your area in the same or slightly higher price range. See what is in those to get a feel for what's the norm (if one exists) in your price range. Bonus if you can walk on LVP somewhere and see what you think.

I'm currently in a rental with LVP and it's fine - easy to clean, looks ok, but kind of slippery for my dog and doesn't feel like real wood. The house I sold in 2020 had hardwood in the kitchen and most of the rest of the first floor. Refinished twice in 25 years but only due to an addition/wall change, then later changing a carpeted room to hardwood. It stood up to kids, big parties, and a big dog. I loved it and would use it again. YMMV

That is some real bad luck on the flooding and not what most people experience.

Have never had a flooding issue in any of the house we have owned so far. My parents did have a sump pump that failed and flooded the basement with a couple of inches of water, but not much more in their 40+ years of owning homes.

For some of your incidents it sounds like delayed/poor maintenance was the real culprit.

I just built and was open to looking at LVP, although I didn't love the striped effect that many of them have in the wood look products. The decision to use engineered wood was made quickly when I had my DH walk across the large installed floor samples at the flooring store. He didn't like the sound of the LVP or the SPC core with thin layer of hardwood.

You dont need a flood, I had a slow leak (drip) from a dishwasher hose. It seeped under the HW and eventually cupped it. We pulled the dishwasher and had damage to cabinets. You dont need a tsunami, a drip does damage,

Yes I agree what sort of niche the house fits in with buyers. If the house is more or less at the entry level for a community, it may be likely that everything it the house has to be just so because the buyer has no budget to speak of to change a single thing beyond what can be mortgaged. At a higher price point the buyer may consider something like flooring just another finish that can be changed. I know someone who sold a house and the buyer removed a hundred thousand dollars in brand new window treatments because they weren't to their taste. And I think the more the house is over the median the more likely that is to occur.

As someone who has lived in 3 houses at a $1.5-2M price pt and am currently renovating a 4th, I would be very turned off by LVP. I think a nice tile or stone (NOT wood look) would be better. Preferably only in areas where you are worried about water damage (kitchen, laundry, baths) and hardwood elsewhere.

Yes Mark! :) We are retiring and building a home in a state that covers pipes, doesn’t have hail storms and closer to 19 young grandkids. I don’t think we can go wrong with the cheaper flooring so I don’t ever have to worry about the floors. When we want to sell, we’ll consider changing the flooring that someone else can worry about.

Thanks everyone, again, for helping me sort it out.

Done with the Heartland!

Source

I vote no but our friends built >1M and have it throughout. They like them. Low maintenance.

I can’t comment on the pros and cons of LVp, but agree with the comment above that people on this site are not representative of typical buyers.

We live in an area where $1m is a higher end home but definitely not the top end. When we were house hunting four years ago around that price point, we were amazed by the garbage that people had in their higher end homes at this price point. And they all eventually sold, so long as they were ”updated”. Honestly the hottest selling homes were exactly what this forum most frequently derides - essentially lipstick on a pig. If the house had grey floors and a grey/white kitchen, it sold like hotcakes (this was four years ago - i’m sure the trends are different now). Didn’t matter if it was LVP floors and RTA chinese junk. In short, 98 percent of buyers just want new and shiny, and don’t care the material. This forum is an extremely niche group that doesn’t reflect most buyers.

This forum is an extremely niche group that doesn’t reflect most buyers.

Pssst! Don't tell our hosts.

Glad to have stumbled upon this thread. We live in a nice home, but we have an aging dog and two toddlers. I liked the look of aqua guard engineered hardwood but it’s a little shiny and I can’t find reviews. Any advice for specific products that are high wear and tear and water resistant? (This would be for 2nd floor kids and play rooms, and I think tile is too hard)

@Katherine Young I would start a new thread with your specific circumstances for more responses. This is an older thread.

LVP flooring in a million dollar home is the same as buying a Rolls Royce and putting on the cheapest available tires. I can't believe how home builders fool everyone into thinking LVP is better. ITS NOT!!!! LVP is for apartments and section 8 Housing.

LVP is appropriate for an 'Unwanted Guest Bedroom' in any dollar home.

(two year old thread and still going)

Bless your heart Mike, for so graciously introducing yourself here.

For what it’s worth, I’ve had real hardwood, tile , LVP & all three have their positives based upon location IMO. My current home is on the beach in So Cal , thankfully I have LVP, it has been virtually indestructible the past four+ years & I cringe to think what my real hardwood floors would look like with kids coming back from the beach 😧. BTW, you would be very lucky to buy a tiny condo for $1 mil here here, so it’s location dependent also. Most people here remodel no matter what ….

LVP in the crawl space would be appropriate.

No flooring is 100% waterproof.

If you have a real flood there is lots of nasty stuff that comes with that, like sewage, and if you think some of that didn't seep in under you "waterproof" LVP, I have a bridge to sell you ...

Well, to be totally fair, I have never seen a 'sewage proof' flooring. Maybe they just do not want to advertise it in that manner.

Lose the word ”luxury”, because it isn't. Just use the word ”vinyl”. Like the clear vinyl covers over your grandma’s living room furniture. Like the vinyl seats in a budget car. Like the vinyl “floor protectors” under the vinyl office chair. Like the vinyl your Cricut machine uses to make the disposable happy birthday streamers.