Home Improvements

My wife and I have recently purchased a new townhouse. Our home is an end unit so our living space and yard is much larger than our surrounding neighbors. We bought in May and spent the next several months renovating. In an uncertain real estate market we felt more comfortable with hedging our bets by purchasing a fixer upper. We purchased the home for $370,000 which was $20,000 under the appraised value. We have recently updated the kitchen, flooring and several other minor projects around the house. A home two doors down from ours (not an end unit) has recently sold for $395,000. In theory an end unit should sell for about $15,000 more. However, I only list my house value as $390,000 when calculating my net worth. I'm trying to be conservative about my homes estimated value.

Here is my challenge. How much money should my wife and I spend on fixing the house up. We still have new siding to replace ($2,500), new tile and vanities in the 2.5 bathrooms (Hoping for under $5,000) and landscaping ($1,000).

My current numbers are below for the amount of money I have put into my home. As a new home owner I am finding it harder than anticipated to get my mind around home equity. Right now, my wife and I are automatically putting $500.00 a week into our ING Orange savings account. This feels a lot better to me than putting $500.00 a week into fixing up my home. This is my struggle. I also feel that I need to build up my cash cushion. Prior to buying our home my ING account was just over $50,000. I want that back.

I am leaning more towards holding off on any major fixes for at least 4 months.