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Do swimming pools add value to your home? Yesterday I tackled the question about whether
or not you should purchase an investment property with a swimming pool but today I want to talk
about whether or not swimming pools add value to your home. The general consensus is no,
they don't add value and I'm going to go in to a bit more detail as to why that's the
case. But before I do I just want to let you know about Positive Cashflow Academy which
is my premium training website where I teach you how to find positive cash flow properties
all over the country, also I teach you how to research in areas as well. That's over
at PositiveCashflowAcademy.com. So the general consensus is that NO swimming
pools don't add value to your home and if they do they don't add a great deal of value
either. If you go to a swimming pool website and you ask them this question then obviously
they're going to say “yes of course swimming pool can add a great deal of value” because
they want you to go ahead and buy a swimming pool. But when it comes to the market that's
not necessarily the case. The reasons are that pools appeal to some buyers but they
turn away many buyers as well. Now depending on your area they may attract a lot of buyers
or they may attract very few buyers. I said in the last episode I'll say it again, if
you're purchasing a property somewhere like Tasmania where is extremely cold, cold winters
and not hot summers then having a pool is not going to be a huge attraction to many
people. But if you're purchasing a property somewhere like Cairns or Townsville or somewhere
up on the north Queens or Darwin somewhere where it gets really hot, well then a pool
might be something that's a necessity to that market. You need to assess your specific market
and whether pool actually acts as an attraction to people or whether actually turns people
away. I find the best way to gather this information
is to speak to your local real estate agent and to ask them. They have a wealth of knowledge
on the market because all they do is sell properties to the market that you are in.
So if you talk to local real estate agent you can ask them about whether all those people
are looking for pools, whether that turns people away, you can ask them about whether
they believe it's going to increase the value of the home or not.
Pools are expensive to build and thus unlikely to rate your home more than what you've spent
on them. So because they're expensive buyers are not necessarily going to go in and say
"Well I believe the poll is worth fifty thousand dollars, you might spend thirty thousand or
forty thousand dollars on it" but buyer is not necessarily going in and saying "okay
well this pool is worth that, I'm willing to pay more than that". They are kind of assessing
the house and assessing everything as a package and looking at what it's worth and so they
are not going to say "well great the pool is worth X amount of dollars and so therefore
I'm going to increase the value of this property by the amount of the pool in comparison to
properties that are comparable without a pool." Does that make sense? When they're comparing
your property with pool to a similar property without a pool they're not necessarily going
to say "well that pool looks like it costs forty grand so I'm going to add forty grand
to the value of that home". That's not necessarily how buyers think, they are just thinking what
they want, they are thinking of their needs and the market that they are in and they want
the best value for their money as well. Polls can actually reduce the value in some
cases. When you got people who don't want a pool, want the the hassle with the the pool,
maybe they're older, part of the older generation, they don't really use a pool anymore, they
just see it as an expense and hassle where they just stand at the edge and throw money-
an example I've heard of what a pool is. They might actually be turned away from the pool
and they might actually not make offers on your property because it has a pool. A local
real estate agent said "the one of the best ways to get great deal for your house and
to sell your house for high-value is to appeal to the most amount of people and to hope for
a bidding war”. By adding a pool you're probably appealing to less people and therefore
a chance of the bidding war be happening, pushing the price of your property up is less
likely. Sometimes a pool can actually reduce value because you're appealing to a smaller
market of people who want a swimming pool. So the general consensus is that if you want
a pool in your property do it for personal reasons not financial reasons. You want a
pool because you've got young kids and you want to go swimming and you live up on the
Gold Coast like I do; a pool is important to me so if I'm going to install a pool I'm
going to do it for personal reasons not for financial reasons. So there you have ‘do
swimming pools add value to your home’? As I said the general consensus is no, not
really but obviously every situation is different, every suburb is different so get advice from
your local real estate agent as to whether or not it's going to work for you . If you
want more videos, articles and podcasts just like this one then head over to the blog at
PositiveCashflowAustralia.com.au or if you want those advanced training tutorials like
I talked about at the beginning then that's over at PositiveCashflowAcademy.com. So until
tomorrow stay positive!