Re: Will an epoxy garage floor increases the resale value
My realtor looked for a house for me with a garage. He said the only value it adds is just being there. Inside doesn't count to most buyers.
Well, I get that, but to be honest I had the highest-volume agent in my area out to give me his valuation opinion before I listed my property (and before I did the epoxy) - his advice was not to epoxy, and his suggested price was $40k under my eventual list price (roughly 20% under the eventual sale price).
I have no doubt he would have gotten me 20% less for the house without the epoxy, but I (obviously!) preferred the bigger number. When I sold my house, I sent him the listing & he admitted he thought the house wouldn't appraise for the price I got. It would have been much easier to take the low dollar listing & sell it to a non-picky buyer (who didn't place any value on an awesome garage), but taking the extra time to prep & finish the house to a higher standard allowed me to market the house to a very picky buyer who had been on the fence & looking at houses for a full year. She walked past hundreds of houses that weren't as clean or "finished" as mine & bought the nicest house on the block.
There was a "comp" in the same neighborhood that was the exact same floor plan, and also rehabbed - but the details weren't as well-done (when I rehab a house, I dig into details like moldings, doorknobs, hinges, outlets & switch plates - things a buyer doesn't necessarily look for, but you notice them subconsciously). The "matching" house took 3 months to sell, even though it was priced $40k below mine.
Appraisers & realtors are human, just like you & it's easy to *say* they aren't affected by the details, or minor things that can be corrected for almost no money, but they are, just like you are. A puke-green carpet in a gorgeous house will reduce the "value" by a lot more than the actual cost to replace it. A weedy yard will reduce the value by more than the cost to clean it up.
It's really no different than buying a used car - you don't need to be an expert to spot a really clean car - the grime in the door jambs, the dirt in the corners of the dash & around the seat brackets shows you whether a car was kept meticulously-clean, or just driven hard & peddled when the owner was done with it. Dealers spend hundreds of dollars to clean all the places that "normal" people don't clean to make a "normal" car look like a "neat-freak's" car- and buyers pay more for those cars.
Epoxied floors can be *part* of a "package deal" a seller is offering a buyer - if all the little details are taken care of, the epoxy can push a home to a higher level & get you a few more bucks. But if the only advantage over the comps is the epoxy, it's not gonna do much. Jmho.
