Hacker News Reader

Comment by argc | Hacker News Reader

Yeah sounds like the people who bought it suck. Why would you destroy a pizza oven? It would add a ton of value to the house for the right buyer. If you had sold it to me I would have absolutely kept the oven :) Also inspires me to follow a similar path for my house. I think the key is to price the house so only someone who values the work you've done would bother buying it, if you have the time to wait around. And I guess that doesn't guarantee anything.

View on HN

One of those things that adds a ton of value for the right person, but for the wrong person is equally negative value (it takes up 64 square feet of yard space!). While most people won't really care. And so while it can add a lot of value to the right person, overall it is zero value. Even to the right person it won't be as much value as you would expect - unless they are putting a more than normal down on the house the bank will then value that at zero and thus not give them a loan for what that feature is worth.

Pools are the same thing - should be valuable to the right buyer, but in practice worth zero. Even the most valuable remodels - kitchens - often are worth less than not doing it at all because while it adds a lot of value to the house it doesn't add as much as they cost.

thats why you should remodel while you live there so you're actually getting value out of your expenditures, not just upgrading everything right before you move out.

Renovating before moving is the worst (excluding clean up (fresh paint, etc) - I feel like most people have horrible taste and use cheapo contractor grade materials, last time I was buying a house I couldn’t believe how many newly renovated homes I saw where I thought “wow this needs a ton of work”

Unfortunately, it’s kind of crazy to use anything better, since — as you pointed out — most people won’t even care.

Pools are worse - they are usually worth negative money when it comes time to sell, because you cannot just let it sit, unlike the pizza oven (at least in theory).

> it takes up 64 square feet of yard space!

Not saying what should or shouldn’t be done, but the implication here seems to be that that’s a lot of yard space. Depending on yard size, that could be a crippling amount of space to lose, or just a drop in the bucket.

I don’t know anything about Seattle yards. I’d kind of expect them to be on the small side, but maybe his wasn’t? He obviously had some amount of land, but from his post I really can’t tell how much.

Because it takes up space and is mostly pointless vs a portable propane or electric one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com