Hmmm...I think the alternative is more interesting. "Slip, sliding away..."

 

It has been a long time since I took Tax I and II back in college but those payments are tax deductible...sort of.

When you sell a house, serious remodeling can increase the basis, thus reducing your taxable gain from the sale. (The gain is the amount you sell for less the basis.) Basis is the amount you paid plus any improvements. Also deductible is the cost of preparing the property for sale such as non-routine cleaning (if I recall correctly). So keep those receipts and check with your tax adviser. Tax savings can be significant.

Disclaimer: While I do have an accounting degree, I never practiced. So like I said, check with your tax adviser.

 

BTW, we generally contract with professionals for major work. (Bill, are you available? ) Small stuff, touch-up, etc. we do ourselves. When the interior was repainted after Katrina we used three colors for various walls/rooms. After a few years the left over paint cans dried up or otherwise became unusable. But I found out I could get one-pint samples of each color from Benjamin Moore directly at very little cost. So now I have a small can of each color I use whenever I have to do small repairs and nail-fills in our walls.

I also like BM. It has held up extremely well over the last decade.

 

It has been a long time since I took Tax I and II back in college but those payments are tax deductible...sort of.

When you sell a house, serious remodeling can increase the basis, thus reducing your taxable gain from the sale. (The gain is the amount you sell for less the basis.) Basis is the amount you paid plus any improvements. Also deductible is the cost of preparing the property for sale such as non-routine cleaning (if I recall correctly). So keep those receipts and check with your tax adviser. Tax savings can be significant.

Disclaimer: While I do have an accounting degree, I never practiced. So like I said, check with your tax adviser.
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Yep, there is a lot you can take off for improvements. I'm doing that right now with the house I sold for my mother last year. My parents did many improvements. Routine maintenance can't be counted, but anything you do to sell the house can. What you can't do is count an improvement twice. For instance, they owned the house for many years, so replaced the roof twice. Can't count both of them.

 

I still have a bedroom to paint but it is very crowded. So I'm going to have two bedrooms carpeted and then move the stuff in the third bedroom into one of the newly carpeted bedrooms. I will then paint the third bedroom and the ceiling in the master bedroom (that one will be a challenge) and bring the carpet installers back to do those two rooms and the hallway and stairs.

 

Good idea...the biggest pain is figuring out where to put everything while you are doing the work. I want to replace carpet in the second bedroom, but in a condo it is harder to find a spot to put stuff. Plus there are things I don't want to move.

 

This is starting to sound like a version of the old "How do you get the dog, the rabbit, and the carrots across the river" riddle.