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.
- 1Selling the house as-is
- 2Focusing on other improvements like landscaping instead
- 3skipping cosmetic repairs and relying only on a deep clean and tidy lawn
- 4letting the buyer handle painting or repairs themselves after purchase
- 5Staying put and investing money into an IRA, high-yield savings account, or stocks instead of real estate
- 6Doing 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 ↗
“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 ↗
“Would you spend $2500 for this just to walk away?”source ↗
“Would this be worth spending this money?”source ↗
“I’m torn about making significant improvements to some of our home versus moving.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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