With the real estate market and home prices stagnating making money on your home remodeling investment has become more difficult. You can come out ahead with your home remodel, but you need to ask the right questions.

Is this a desirable location? Location, Location, Location. Never has this been more true. The best situation to be in is to remodel the worst home in the best neighborhood. How do you know if this is you? Most likely you’re the homeowner in the older part of town that’s close to the best schools and amenities.

What improvements will I make? Not only must you think about the upgrades you want to put into your home, but you must also make sure the improvements are in line with the rest of the homes in your neighborhood. Yes, you may want to live in the best home in your neighborhood, but remember that buyers in a soft market will not pay what you feel your home is worth if the neighborhood is not of equal value to your home. Buyers will not pay $200,000 for your home if the rest of the homes in the neighborhood are only worth $75,000.

What’s this going to cost me? Two ways you can figure out the cost of your remodel. The first is to price out every single item yourself. But this can quickly become very time consuming. The second choice is to receive estimates from a contractor or two or three. This is especially beneficial if you’re unsure if you can complete all parts of the project yourself.

What’s the bottom line? You know what you want, you know how much it will cost, now you need to know what your homes value will be AFTER you’ve completed the project. The easiest way is to hire an appraiser to give you an assessment of what your house will be worth when you’re done. If your return on investment is not greater than 100% you’ll want to go back to the drawing board, especially if you’re going to be selling soon.

Why is this important to me? Your ultimate goal when selling is to have your home appeal to the greatest number of buyers possible. By answering these questions you’re putting yourself in the best possible position to make a profit from your home selling experience.

And isn’t that the ultimate goal?

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During the summer I spend a lot of my time playing softball and this year the coed team I play with was able to qualify for nationals after placing 3rd in the state tournament. What does this mean for you? You get to see some cool pictures taken while we were visiting the Gateway Arch.

Background on the tournament location: We played in Alton, IL which doesn’t really mean a whole lot in itself, but what was exciting (at least for me) is that Alton Brown of Good Eats and Iron Chef fame actually visited this city while he was filming his newest season of “Feasting on Asphalt.” Along with seeing the same attractions around town that made it into his show, my team even ate at the local bar that he featured during the episode, Fast Eddies Bon Air. 

What was also nice about Alton, the city, not person, is that it’s only about 45 minutes away from St. Louis; so we spent half a day roaming around the Gateway Arch. 

The first thing you realize about the Arch is that you really can’t tell how big it is until you see it in person. It measures 630 feet tall as well as 630 feet wide at the base. It truly is a very largepiece of U.S. history. I was also surprised to learn that the skin of the Arch was made out of sheets of stainless steel.

A note for anyone who may be the slightest bit claustrophobic, they call what you ride up to the top of the Arch in a “tram” all the way up until it comes time to actually enter this so called “tram,” and then they call it what it is, a “capsule.” I actually had to lean forwards so my head wouldn’t hit the top of the capsule.

When we were buying our tickets it’s called a tram, on the brochures we were looking at, same thing; tram. But all of a sudden we’re waiting in line to get on the tram and above the door it says “capsule.” We really didn’t think much ofit until the doors opened and five people exit what you could consider to be a clown car on it’s best day. The ride up and down felt like being in an airplane.

Outside of the size of our capsule the ride up was smooth and the view from the top was exhilarating. I hope you enjoy the pictures!

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