People remodel their homes for different reasons. Sometimes, it’s to make their home more livable and enjoyable. Other times, the goal is to improve a home’s value for resale purposes.

The 2022 Remodeling Impact Report from the National Association of REALTORS®, in cooperation with the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, examines both perspectives.

If you’re preparing to sell your home, your agent will undoubtedly offer recommendations to help it sell faster and at a higher price. After all, agents routinely hear homebuyers’ feedback about what they like and what turns them off.

Agents also tend to recognize which upgrades offer the biggest bang for the buck in quick and cost-effective staging solutions. Their top advice is? Painting projects!

Almost half (48%) of surveyed REALTORS® say they recommend painting a home’s entire interior space before selling, and 38% recommend painting one interior room.

Other interior remodeling projects among agents’ top five recommendations are kitchen upgrades (30%), bathroom renovations (26%), and hardwood floor refinishing (22%).

Source: 2022 Remodeling Impact Report

These projects also earned high “joy scores” from homeowners. So, suppose you’re considering refinishing your hardwood floors, tackling some painting projects, or making other interior upgrades. You can be reasonably confident that you’ll enjoy the results even if you aren’t selling soon.

The report also examines numerous other interior remodeling projects. Even though real estate professionals were less likely to recommend completing these projects before selling, homeowners who invested in these upgrades still reported high satisfaction with their results.

In particular, new wood flooring, closet renovations, insulation upgrades, adding a new home office, and conversions of attics to living areas earned perfect joy scores.

Source: 2022 Remodeling Impact Report

This is the first time NAR’s report has included pandemic perspectives. Notably, 40% of REALTOR® respondents acknowledged higher demand for home offices during the pandemic, even though only 3% of REALTORS® recommended adding a home office before selling. Perhaps this is because it’s relatively easy to convert a spare bedroom into home office space.

Agents also observed increased pandemic demand for complete kitchen renovations (25%), kitchen upgrades (25%), bathroom renovations (19%), and basement conversions to living areas (17%).