One of the items that buyers remember when they are purchasing a home are the countertops. Putting in a cheap countertop can cost you much more than you save. The old axiom is that kitchens and bathrooms sell a house and what really sells a kitchen or bathroom is a great countertop.
Most of the rehabs we do are complete gut-jobs of old, dilapidated homes from the 1920s to the 1960s. That means our average rehab runs somewhere between $60,000 and $70,000. If we are going to spend that much on a rehab, we better darn sure install a decent countertop that will attract buyers.
In most of our rehabs, we opt for a light-colored countertop that steers away from brown colors that were so popular just a few years ago. We don’t use prefabbed countertops. We have developed relationships with a few stone yards. We’ll buy the stone by the slab and then we’ll have a fabricator custom-cut and install the countertops. With volume, we’ll usually pay somewhere between $800 and $900 for each slab plus no more than $1500 for fabrication and installation. We’ll use one to two slabs in each installation.
It is true that you can save money on your renovation by putting in less expensive, prefabricated countertops straight from the home improvement super store, but buyers look closely at countertops. Knowing where to allocate your resources on a renovation is the key to being profitable. Countertops are one of those items that you should not pinch pennies on.