Read This Before Remodeling Your Home

You're tired of your digs. You don't want to put up with the hassle of moving, or perhaps you're not at the point where you can afford your dream home. Maybe you're perfectly happy with your place, but you're sure that there's that one upgrade that could make it better.

You're in the Home Improvement Zone.

It's not necessarily a bad place to be. Making your place more livable has its benefits. However, many of these projects aren't cheap. Even something as simple as replacing ceiling fans or rain gutters can run into higher tabs than you were bargaining for if it exposes faulty wiring or a tired roof. You need to approach home improvement goals with the same determined and well-researched mind-set you use in arriving at major life decisions.

It's your home, and you don't want to have to literally live with your mistake.

There's no such thing as investing in home improvement Some homeowners justify their renovation projects by calling them investments. They're putting in a swimming pool or replacing stained carpets with hardwood planks because they will make that back -- and then some -- when they ultimately sell their homes.

Don't think that way. It's a myth.

Nearly every home improvement project will cost you more than what you will probably get for it when you eventually sell your place. Remodeling Magazine priced out projects for its 2014 Cost vs. Value survey, arriving at what the expenditure will do to increase the value of the property. Let's look at the five midrange projects that have the highest return on the original outlay.

Source: Remodeling Magazine.

That should come as a wake-up call to anyone expecting to profit from an update. Even the project with the highest return -- replacing an old door with a steel one -- will only see you making back less than $0.97 on every dollar.

The math gets hairier when eyeing more upscale projects. The best return in the high-end category is replacingexisting siding with new fiber-cement siding, and thatmerely results in getting 87% of that back at the time of a sale.

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Read This Before Remodeling Your Home