Is a Pool A Selling Point or a Selling Drag?
Summertime is just about ready to come to an end and much of the country, and with some or many pools will start to get cleaned up and shut down and prepare for winter. Setting up and cleaning and maintaining a pool can be a lot of work, and like a boat people don’t always get as much enjoyment out of a pool is they expect when they first install it.
New home buyers have to seriously consider whether or not a house with a pool is actually a benefit or a money pit and time waster in disguise. Pools can be a lot of fun, but you must consider whether or not it is in your lifestyle to use a pool and a regular basis and maintaining clean the pool as well. Comparing a cool for the summer season can easily take a weeks worth of work.
If you have small children you should also consider the safety issues or associate with a pool. You may have to be extra vigilant about watching young children and ensuring that they don’t fall into the pool, you may have to build or set up fences and gates around the pool to protect young children, and you may even have to rebuild additional decks or fix or repair concrete walkways and things like that on a regular basis.
All of those things are typically not terribly cheap, and that pool that seems to raise the selling price of a home in the listing, I actually make that home much more expensive to maintain his good on the road. If you look at a home’s value from an accountant’s perspective, a pool can actually be a drag on the value of the home if you consider all the money you have to invest and spend on that pool as time goes forward.
So before you sign on the dotted line, and head to the store to pick up some new swimsuits, make sure that this is the right choice for you. Maybe there’s a link in your future or a home by the ocean or even a membership at the YMCA, there are many alternatives other than buying a house with a pool.
