Only 23% of Renovations Are About Resale Value. Here's What Sells the Rest

You’re quoting a bathroom remodel. You walk the homeowner through options, and you default to the framing that’s worked for years: which finishes hold their value, which layout choices a future buyer will appreciate, which upgrades they’ll recoup at resale.

The homeowner nods along. They go with the safe scope. You celebrate closing a $20,000 job.

What you missed: they were ready to spend $30,000 on a layout built for how they actually live. The oversized shower. The accessibility features they’ll need in ten years. The dedicated space for a parent who’s moving in. But your pitch was built for a homeowner planning to sell, and they stopped planning to sell two years ago.

According to Acorn Finance’s 2026 Stay-and-Renovate Economy report, only 23% of homeowners cite increasing their home’s value as the primary motivation behind their most significant planned project. Thirty-one percent are renovating to improve how they live day to day. Another 30% are updating the space. And 62% have already started or accelerated projects specifically because they decided not to move. The pitch that used to close deals (“You’ll get this back when you sell”) no longer matches what the buyer is spending on.

Whitney Hill, co-founder and CEO of Snap ADU, a design-build general contractor in San Diego specializing in detached accessory dwelling units, has watched this shift reshape her client mix. When rates were low, more of her buyers had an investor mindset and measured every decision against projected returns. As rates climbed, the mix shifted toward families building for intergenerational living and long-term flexibility. “Almost always those timelines are more about, ‘can I live here comfortably for the longer term?’” she says.

Here’s how to adjust what you sell and how you sell it.

Sell the lifestyle return

When a homeowner plans to stay, the value equation changes. Resale ROI measures what the next buyer will pay. Lifestyle return measures how the project changes the homeowner’s daily experience of living in their home.

Hill uses this framing in every sales conversation with stay-put clients. “How is this going to change the day-to-day of how that property works for you?” she asks. That question opens a fundamentally different conversation than “How much value will this add?”

The budget is there. 66% of homeowners plan to invest more than $15,000 on home improvements in the next 12 months, and 94% are confident that renovating will make their current home the one they actually want. Motivation and spending intent are both high. The question is whether your proposal connects to what’s driving the spending. Comfort and aesthetics now outpace resale value by more than 2 to 1 as the top motivators for renovation projects.

One tactical shift Hill recommends: presenting costs as monthly rates rather than lump sums. “If you break it out into the daily or the weekly or the monthly impact, it becomes relatively small,” she says. A $5,000 upgrade that sounds steep as a line item looks different when broken down into monthly payments. Forty-nine percent of homeowners rank monthly payment amount among their top three factors when choosing financing, which means this framing matches how they’re already thinking about money.

Your move: In your next proposal, lead with how the project will change how the homeowner uses the space daily. If resale value is also a factor, let it support the case rather than carry it. A simple question early in the conversation (“Are you planning to stay in this home long term?”) tells you which framing to lead with. 

Give buyers a menu, not a blank page

Homeowners renovating for lifestyle rather than resale tend to personalize more, but they also take longer to decide. Hill found that packaging related upgrades into bundles speeds up the process and increases the total project scope.

“Rather than just having folks come to us with a wish list, it’s helpful if we can give them a menu to pick from,” she says. “If you want accessibility, here’s the accessibility package of things that go together.”

The approach works because it reduces decision fatigue. Instead of evaluating 15 individual line items, the homeowner chooses between two or three packages where the components already make sense together. Hill adds a second layer: she shares selection rates. When a buyer is on the fence, she’ll tell them how often other clients in a similar situation chose the same upgrade. That reference point moves the conversation forward without putting pressure on the decision.

Here’s what a bundle might look like in practice. An aging-in-place package for a bathroom remodel could include:

• Curbless shower with bench and grab bars
• Wider doorway (36-inch minimum clearance)
• Lever-style handles on all fixtures and doors
• Non-slip flooring throughout

Each item gets asked about individually. Packaged together, they become a single decision the homeowner can say yes or no to, and the scope increases without a drawn-out line-item negotiation.

The demand is there. Fifty-five percent of homeowners are planning accessibility or aging-in-place modifications in the next 12 to 24 months, and 73% of remodelers report that requests for aging-in-place features have increased over the past five years. Packaging those features together makes it easier for the homeowner to act on intent they already have.

Your move: Identify three to five upgrades your customers frequently ask about individually and group them into one or two packages. Track how often clients select each one, then share that number with future buyers to help them benchmark the decision.

Prioritize the decisions that can only happen once

Homeowners who plan to stay long term are more willing to invest in personalization, but the upgrades that matter most are structural. Paint, tile, and finishes can all be redone later at relatively low cost. Layout changes, nook additions, and accessibility features need to happen during the initial build or renovation. “Some of those are structural,” Hill says. “You only have one chance really to figure out all the door clearances and those sorts of things.”

She gives an example: a client’s mother had a unique sewing machine and needed a dedicated area for it. That kind of layout adjustment is a small bump in scope during construction but a major expense to retrofit later. Homeowners who plan to live in a space for 15 years will pay for that personalization now if you help them see why the timing matters.

Here’s a simple framework for walking the homeowner through these decisions:

Decide now (structural, costly to change later):

• Room layout and wall placement
• Door widths and clearances
• Plumbing rough-in locations
• Electrical panel capacity and outlet placement
• Accessibility features (grab bar blocking, curbless shower pans)

Decide anytime (cosmetic, easy to swap):

• Paint colors and wall treatments
• Tile, countertop, and fixture finishes
• Hardware and accessories
• Lighting fixtures
• Window treatments

Presenting this split during the proposal gives the homeowner a clear reason to invest in structural personalization now rather than deferring it. The cosmetic list reassures them that not everything has to be decided up front.

Forty percent of homeowners who originally bought a starter home now consider it their forever home by choice. Another 35% consider it their forever home because the market or their finances are keeping them there. Both groups benefit from the same advice: invest in the changes that are hardest to make later. But the framing differs. For the first group, the project is about building the home they want. For the second, it’s about making the home they have work for the life they’re living now.

Your move: Before finalizing any project scope, walk the homeowner through which elements are easy to change later and which are one-time decisions. Frame structural upgrades as time-sensitive, not just cost-sensitive.

Start here

This week: Review your last three proposals. Did you lead with resale value or lifestyle? On your next quote, ask the homeowner whether they’re planning to stay long term, and match your framing to their answer. 

This month: Package three to five commonly requested upgrades into bundles. Track how often clients select each one, then share that number with future buyers.

This quarter: Build the “decide now / decide anytime” framework into your proposal template so every homeowner sees the structural-versus-cosmetic split before they finalize scope.

The bottom line

The homeowner sitting across from you has decided to stay. Sixty-two percent have already started or accelerated renovation projects because they took moving off the table. They’re spending real budgets, frequently above $15,000, and 94% believe renovating will make their current home the one they actually want. The contractor who frames the project around how they’ll live in that home is the one who earns the work.

Your customer is ready to invest in the home they’re keeping. Acorn Finance makes it easier for them to say yes to the full project. They compare loan offers from multiple lenders in minutes, you get paid when the work starts, and the scope stays intact instead of being cut to fit what’s in savings.