Home Renovation Gone Bad - Improvements That Can Devalue A Home

The first renovation that could decrease the value of your home is putting in a swimming pool. Sure, if you live in Arizona, Nevada or Florida where the weather is hot, a pool is great. In other parts of the country, it's a liability. The upkeep and daily maintenance that comes with having a pool could eliminate potential buyers.

If you want to install a pool to increase home value, you need to understand that pool upkeep goes hand in hand with having one on your property. Many people have come to realize that maintenance of pools takes time and energy, and prospective buyers realize that reality and may not want to invest what's needed for pool upkeep. But in some areas or to certain buyers, a pool can be an appealing attraction.

The second renovation from hell is putting in a new addition to your home. A sloppy renovation to any part of your home will decrease its value. Unfortunately, so can well-done renovations. Home buyers look for specific things they want in a home. Too much space is just as bad as too little space, especially when you think about heating and cooling additional, seldom-used rooms.

Third are the "trendy" renovations. It may be "hot" now, but in ten years styles will have changed dramatically; when it's time to sell your home that hip paint motif of your favorite NFL team could be a costly mistake! Nobody finds the "perfect" home. Every potential buyer takes a mental inventory of "this I love, but this has to go." A nice new paint job and new bathroom fixtures won't send buyers away in horror, but they probably won't be a major selling point, either. Buyers who look for an "exact fit" will be looking for a long time! Part of the appeal of a new home is moving in and customizing it for yourself.

A "sink or swim" renovation could be installing an indoor or outdoor jetted hot tub. It could make a difference to the right buyer who has both a need and knowledge of how to care for a hot tub. But for buyers who are elderly or handicapped, a hot tub could be a definite detraction from the value of your home. Before you undertake such a radical renovation, consult a real estate agent about whether or not it will benefit the value of your home. It could backfire on you!

Author Steven Gaines takes us from New York's most expensive condominiums and co-ops to the offices of its most powerful real estate brokers to reveal the outlandish displays of ego, bad behavior, and status hunger that come into play when the best addresses in the city are on the line.

With his signature elan, Gaines weaves a gossipy tapestry of brokers, buyers, co-op boards, and eccentric landlords and tells of the apartment hunting and renovating adventures of many celebrities - from Tommy Hilfiger to Donna Karan, from Jerry Seinfeld to Steven Spielberg, from Barbra Streisand to Madonna.

Here, too, is a fascinating chronicle of the changes in Manhattan's residential skyline, from the slums of the nineteenth century to the advent of the luxury building. Gaines describes how living in boxes stacked on boxes came to be seen as the ultimate in status, and how the co-operative apartment, originally conceived as a form of housing for the poor, came to be used as a legal means of blackballing undesirable neighbors.

A social history told through brick and mortar, The Sky's the Limit is the ultimate look inside one of the most exclusive and expensive enclaves in the world, and at the lengths to which people will go to get in.

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