Nowadays, you can hardly turn on the TV without seeing a show about home renovations. This year North America is expected to spend approximately $330 billion dollars a year in home renovations, and the majority of people are expected to spend approximately $5000 in renovations in the next year. The renovation that are topping most peoples list is the kitchen and the bathroom.

Home improvements can set you back a lot of money if you are not careful, and may have little to no return on your investment. If you are investing a lot of money in your home renovations, then you want to be sure to be profiting off of the effort that you have made. With the average age of homes approaching 25 years old, more and more people are required to spend money on their property to keep it up to par.

With everyone dishing out more and more money, these home renovation companies are making more money. It is easy to loose hundreds if not thousands of dollars on your reno0vations if you are not careful. Here are some simple tips that can help you to reduce your home renovation bill by up to 50%.

Choosing the Correct Improvements

According to Remodeling magazine, every dollar that you spend on your home renovations should contribute approximately 75 to 80 percent to the home value. This means for every dollar that you spend on your property, 75 cents will be adding to your property value; however, this number depends on what renovation project you choose to complete.

Kitchens and Bathrooms are a popular choice for remodeling and this is a good choice because these rooms have the highest depreciation. Also, the kitchen and the bathroom adds the most to the property value and helps to sell the property quicker than any other rooms. These rooms, in the past, had been able to recover the costs of the renovations by up to 90%.

Your renovations depend on a lot of factors other than just your house. It also depends on your neighborhood. If the property type does not fit your neighborhood, then you may not get the return you were expecting. Also, by making high end improvements, it does not always guarantee you to get high returns on your investment.

Reduce your Labor Costs

The scope, complexity and size of the job are all factors that can influence the amount of money required for the labor. The following should help you reduce your labor costs:

• If you are planning on hiring a contractor, this is something required for midsized or large jobs, then expect to spend an additional 20% to the starting estimates. This will cover all the unexpected subcontractors fees, as well as the costs of fixing mistakes completed by the subcontractors.
• If you think that you will need less than 3 subcontractors to complete your home renovations, then you can save some money by being your own contractor; however, you will be responsible for any do-overs, managing the project, and making sure that everything is completed to standard.
• If you live in an urban area, then you can cut costs on many specialty roles by widening your search radius for people to hire. Many of these skilled staff will do the job with travel built into the rate.
• If you are skilled and can do some of the work yourself, then your ‘DIY’ skills can actually translate to cash in your pocket. Make sure that you include your own work in your expense reports.
• Don’t overpay for future work. As long as you are completing work, you might as well get it all done in one shot. No sense doing it again in the future if it becomes required. For example, if your walls are open, then you might as well wire up all the walls instead of just where you need it. This will save you money in case you actually need it some time in the future.

Planning and Strategies about Collecting Supplies

With a well planned out approach, you can save thousands of dollars on supplies to complete your renovation projects. The following is some tricks to help you save:

• Shop at the salvage yard. You can find many deals at salvage yards over going to the local Home Depot. Salvage yards have great finds that you may have to dish out thousands of dollars for; however, at salvage yards you can get these items for pennies on the dollar. You can also salvage goods yourself by finding the items by the curb or at garage sales. Being thrifty can actually save you thousands.
• Shop online with care. This is because online, a lot of the times you can get some pretty good price breaks; however, once you receive the items, after shipping, there could be some pretty big damages to the items that you have received. It is advisable to order up to 20% more tiles to allow for breakage when being delivered.
• Search for wholesale goods instead of new goods. A lot of online builder/supply companies will sell overstocked, returned, or misordered items at huge discounts. You can find almost any item at great discounts if you allocate enough time searching.
• Shop with construction retailers. If you are able to find out where the home builders are buying there supplies in your neighborhood, then you could be saving up to 50% off retail home stores.
• Consider buying floor samples. When shopping around for items for your home renovations, then consider buying the floor models. These items will save you up to 50% on the items, and sometimes the retailer will provide you with the warranty as well.
• Planning on a five year strategy. By preparing five years in advance the renovations that you will need to complete, then this will save you a lot of money because it will allow you to shop for deals. If you see something on sale that you will need in a few years, then you may want to pick it up while it is on sale as opposed to waiting till you have to renovate to buy the supplies for the upgrade. Confirm that the sale is really good before making the purchase.

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