Actually, its virtually impossible to disaggregate the increase in the final price of your house with a new driveway from the house without the new driveway. The way I look at the sale after buying and selling a few, and doing data analysis on pricing in a professional setting, just like Zillow uses factors on lot size, sq footage, and the documented characteristics, each house has unique factors, such as view, what the buyer wants vs what the seller has, etc, and the other factors, like how the house is staged, etc. ie, you can't tell me what the price, not cost, of the garage or any other part of the house was in the P&S when you bought or sold a previously owned home.
Basically every house the basic rooms, garage, lanai etc, to get to the
estimated Zillow fair market value. However, at the time of sale, what appeals to the buyer is not the basics, but the uniqueness of the house for which he/she will pay. not everyone puts the same value on the amount of grass, the view, the lanai size versus the garage size versus any other extra which make the house unique from the same prebuilt standard model. So is there someone who will pay up for the new driveway? yes, will he/she know what part of the price they paid for the house is the new driveway?
Finally, too many people over financialize a decision. If you paid for college for your kids, what was your return? I paid for most of my two, and I refuse to financialize those decisions because I could afford it and wouldn't have them start off with a large debt load, regardless of ROI, my choice, my values. If you want a nice driveway, get it. If you will feel better about your house, get it. Just don't get it because you are trying to do an ROI on return on the future sale of the house.
sportsguy