I blame the HGTV shows for this misconception that a house renovation has a positive investment return. They show things like “a $100,000 kitchen remodel leads to an increase in house value of $80,000, an 80% return!”, when of course the real return is -20%. That’s not even counting time-value, which may lower it to -40% or -50% depending how long you hold the house. When you factor in opportunity cost...even worse. The best home “renovation”, when it comes to investment, is to do nothing.