Said It Here

Should I finish an unfinished garage before selling my house?

Finishing an unfinished garage with drywall and insulation costs thousands of dollars upfront. Homeowners hesitate because they worry they will not make a profit or recover those costs when selling the house as is.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    Selling the house as-is
  2. 2
    Focusing on other improvements like landscaping instead
  3. 3
    skipping cosmetic repairs and relying only on a deep clean and tidy lawn
  4. 4
    letting the buyer handle painting or repairs themselves after purchase
  5. 5
    Staying put and investing money into an IRA, high-yield savings account, or stocks instead of real estate
  6. 6
    Doing smaller home improvements without friction while keeping the current home

In their words

Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.

unfinished garage - would you finish before selling?source ↗

would you finish before listing or just sell as is?source ↗

Important_Bat7919 · r/HomeImprovement · 2 upvotes

I understand the price is fair, I’m just curious if knowing that I won’t make a profit in the house does it make sense to spend the $$?source ↗

Odd_Head1922 · r/HomeMaintenance · 1 upvotes

Would you spend $2500 for this just to walk away?source ↗

Would this be worth spending this money?source ↗

Odd_Head1922 · r/HomeMaintenance

I’m torn about making significant improvements to some of our home versus moving.source ↗

ariadnesthread62 · r/personalfinance

Where this came up

People with this problem also raised