Which Home Projects Should I Do Before Selling?

It’s one of the first questions sellers ask: what should I fix, update or remodel before listing? The real answer comes from the individual house, but a remodeling report released in April 2025 gave a useful national reference point.

Start with the house, not a checklist

Our approach is to meet sellers at the property, walk through it together, and decide which repairs or improvements deserve priority. National data can frame that conversation, but a project that makes sense for one Marin home may be unnecessary, or actively wasteful, for another.

Estimated cost recovery, 2025 report

The highest estimated cost recovery didn’t come from the biggest renovations. Smaller, visible, functional improvements took the top three spots:

1. New steel front door: 100%
2. Closet renovation: 83%
3. New fiberglass front door: 80%
4. New vinyl windows: 74%
5. New wood windows: 71%
6. Basement conversion to living area: 71%
7. Attic conversion to living area: 67%
8. Complete kitchen renovation: 60%
9. Minor kitchen upgrade: 60%
10. Bathroom addition: 56%
11. New primary bedroom suite: 54%
12. Bathroom renovation: 50%

Source: National Association of Realtors® and National Association of the Remodeling Industry, 2025 Remodeling Impact Report (NAR’s summary). These are national estimates, not guaranteed returns for any individual home or for Marin County.

Bigger isn’t automatically better

The lesson isn’t that every seller should replace the front door or build a closet system. It’s that a project’s size and its likely resale recovery are different things.

• First impressions: a front door is small, but it’s where a buyer arrives. Its condition shapes the first impression.
• Function matters: storage doesn’t photograph like a dramatic kitchen, but good closets make a home easier to live in.
• Cost still matters: a renovation can improve a house and still not recover its full cost at resale.

What Realtors® most often recommended before listing

• Paint the entire home: recommended by 50% of Realtors® surveyed, the most common pre-listing project.
• Paint an interior room: 41%.
• Address the roof: 37%, when the home’s condition called for it.

What only the actual house can tell you

National research shows broad patterns: some improvements recover more of their cost than others, buyers care about condition, and expensive projects don’t automatically produce the best resale economics. It’s a good starting point for deciding where not to overspend. The right project list still depends on the home’s condition, architecture, price point, competing inventory and likely buyer. That’s why our seller process starts at the property, and we can coordinate the chosen work through our network of painters, contractors, electricians, plumbers and other pros.

Published April 17, 2025, discussing research released by NAR and NARI that month. Costs, buyer preferences and local competition change; read these percentages as a historical national reference, not a current Marin calculator.