Does adding a pool increase home value?
 

I was doing some research to see if adding a pool and spa increases the value of your home as much or more than the cost of the pool. My conclusions were inconclusive. Does the forum have any evidence or suggestions on where to search for better results?

Welcome to the forum. Depends on so many factors and location, etc. Look on The Villages Homes for sale and compare home with and without pool in same neighborhood. If I add a pool to my home I would get most of it back as I have a view. You don’t say if you have a home already and want to add a pool and spa to it?

I would never expect to recover 100 percent of the cost for any upgrade. But in the case of a pool, it would decrease the value to me because I would never buy a house with a pool. Too much maintenance and liability.

We had a pool and hot tub in our previous house for 17 years. Loved and enjoyed it. But this was also when our Son was growing up.
When we moved here we didn’t want either. It’s a responsibility we no longer wanted as we got older.

If it has privacy and a view I would say probably yes. If it’s looking out at the back of other homes probably not.

Keep in mind once you have the pool installed there is no going back.

You will have limited your pool (no pun intended) of interested buyers to those who *want* a pool. We did not want a pool in our new home so any home with one already installed was out of the running and we had no interest in seeing the house. More than just a few consider a pool an expense and liability they want to avoid.

OTOH--if you have *room* for a pool then your field of interested buyers is everybody.

Best advise would be to assume you are putting it in for *your* enjoyment during the years you are here and then see what happens.

My realtor informed me that WAY more prospective buyers prefer homes WITH pools than without.

According to the National Association of Realtors, an inground pool will return only 56 percent of the cost to install it upon resale.

Probably the worst "investment" you could make.

With the over-priced pools in TV, expect to get back about 20¢ for every 1$ you spend.

You can search on Google all day and you won't find a single source (other than TOTV), that will tell you a pool is a good "investment".

And realtors always tell the truth. It's a rule. Don't believe me, just ask one.

That's because they don't understand the extra costs and liabiliy of owning a pool. All they see is something that looks nice.

They understand SALE, closing = commission

If real estate sales people were even 1/2 as smart and qualified as they think they are, they would have retired at 40 years old. Instead, most of them are still working in their 70's, spreading their "knowledge" far and wide.

Yes and no, depends?

How much of a loss did you take on your TV pool, or multi TV houses with a pool. To give first hand perspective to future residents in TV on buying or building a home with a pool, is great I tell instead of an article

The economics in the Villages with respect to pools seems to be different than everywhere else in the planet. In most places the pools don't add much to the value of a home, because as many people don't want them as do.

But in the Villages its different. If you search listing in either MLS or on thevillages.com you will find asking prices for homes with pools are $100-$150K more than similar homes without pools.

The cheapest home right now on thevillages.com that is at least 1700 SF and has a pool is $750K.

There are also a couple of small 1200SF cottages for sale with small pools for which they are asking $575K.

Also, because there are so few pool homes on the market relative to the total number of listings. They probably sell fast. I only counted 26 pools homes for sale on thevillages.com.

Supply and demand drives prices. There are typically several relatively expensive high end homes available with pools, so a pool in a home like that would tend to add less value simply because of the supply. On the other hand, it is very difficult to find a relatively modest home, at a more affordable price point, that has a pool, especially one with a view and privacy. A pool would most definitely add value to such a home. That’s one of the primary reasons we felt comfortable adding a pool to our very modest home with a private wildlife preserve in the back yard. We searched long and hard to find such a home and it simply wasn’t available, so we bought our modest home and had the pool built. Our home has approximately doubled in value since we bought it 10 years ago, even after taking into account the cost of adding the pool. Also, it doesn’t hurt that the cost of building a pool has about doubled since ours was built.

Do those of you that have a pool know how much that increases your property insurance?

That is one of the first questions that I always get when talking to an insurance agent. I always answer no so I don’t know how much owning one increases your insurance.

New homes, built designed around the pool feature, in increase the value accordingly. Take an existing home and add a pool, and you may increase the value 30 to 50 percent.


As some have stated, the bad news is you now removed your home from consideration by all the citizens who do NOT want a pool. Considering our membership comes with pool rights to over 70 pools, I would think those wanting a private pool would be very limited.

I'd love to see some evidence to support that conclusion.

Having owned a home with a pool before, the last thing I wanted when we moved here was all the work involved in maintaining a pool. With several pools, including an indoor one, just a short golf cart ride from our house, why bother? It was great back when we had kids and then grandkids around but I'll take a community pool any day now.

If you REALLY want to get a understanding on how popular having your own pool is, read the ARC submissions each week for the districts. There are anywhere between 3-5 new applications for a pool each week. The desire for them seems to be pretty steady.

I think the actual number of folks that do not want a pool are relatively small. I think the majority of folks just don't want to pay the additional cost for a home that has a pool...so they say that they don't want a pool. Most people would say they don't want a 4 car garage, but if their lot could accommodate it and it was free they would take it....just like a pool. There are very few that are adamantly against it.

While you are right, there’s a complication. True, a lot of people aren’t interested in buying a home with a pool or in-ground hot tub, so if you have one, they won’t be interested in your house. But there are also a lot of people who WANT a pool and won’t consider your house if you don’t have one. I’ve been told by agents that there are a lot more people who want pools than there are pools to be had, so they keep the price up. I understand that these days a pool (with heat pump, heating tubes on the roof, concrete work, bigger bird cage) can easily top $100,000. I’ve been in a couple here that had to be much more than that. The fancier your house is, the fancier your pool should be.

You should also have enough patio inside the birdcage for lots of patio furniture. A wall to wall pool doesn’t cut it. I had a pool in my first home in The Villages. The sellers probably made a profit because pools were much cheaper when they had it put in. It was 15’x30’. That was long enough to swim laps, but it’s nicer to swim laps in a bigger pool. I had a heat pump installed. That cost $6,000, and it was loud. There was already a tube heater on the roof, but that isn’t enough in the winter. Combined with one of those bubble wrap pool covers, the heat pump could keep the pool at 90° in January. I soon realized, though, that I only rarely used the pool, as I live alone. I only used it with guests, and I rarely had guests. I soon took to heating the pool only when I knew guests were coming who would enjoy the pool. That was cheaper. When guests were there, though, we never swam. We just sat on the concrete benches in the pool or walked back and forth and chatted. I saw an in-ground hot tub here a few years ago what was about 8’x15’. It had benches along both sides. It seems to me that that would be a lot of fun at a party, and it would need a much smaller heater. Ideal. (In my experience, people who don’t have heat pumps don’t use their pools six months a year, and if you rent a home with a pool for a couple months in the winter, if you don’t have a heat pump, you won’t be using that pool.

I found that my pool was costing me $2,000 a year for cleaning and water testing (it was a salt water pool, which I highly recommend), and about $2,000 more for maintenance. Given how rarely I used it, it was costing me about $1,000 per use.

Pool
 

I agree, just sold our house with a pool in TX and got to TV a week ago. Although I loved the pool and we used it all the time, I won't miss taking care of it. My buddy that's an appraiser said it really only adds around 16k to the house. I'm like yea right, tell a pool builder you want a pool in your back yard for 16k. House was only on the market 15 days, and we got a full price offer.

this is a tricky equation to analyze. Assuming that number is accurate is it applicable to the tv ? Obviously not. There are no definitive answers here. People who spend upwards to 200k a lot and are bidding against a minimum of 50 people for that lot are more than likely going to build a pool without a second thought. People who buy interior lots will see the logic of swimming in the community pool. Neither decision is wrong. Any analysis that says you're going to lose money in tv on a real estate purchase with or without a pool is certainly a suspect analysis .

If you go on to the internet in general states you will never get 100% of the cost back, The Villages might be different. Putting the cost aside you have to decide if you really want it and are going to take full use of it. We had a large pool in Staten Island N.Y., it was great the first year, then I found myself spending more time maintaining it than swimming in it.

Our first house in The Villages had a beautiful pool. We were in it almost daily, and at night in the summer. Maintenance cost was the cost of weekly pool service. Five years ago it was approx $120 per month. When we put the house on the market, it sold in one day, because of the pool.

Count me in the minority that think in Florida it absolutely adds value. At least in the southern, newer areas it does. It seems houses with pools are getting about 200K more and the pools are generally in the 150-175K range.

I am building a pool now and it was mandatory for me when I bought here. I much prefer the convenience and lack of silly rules at my home. Pool maintenance is super easy these days with the salt water systems. I've never seen any different in insurance premiums. My pool in Massachusetts is probably used only 20-30 actual days per year and I still wouldn't go without a pool.

We really need to stop comparing real estate from wherever we came from and applying the logic to The Villages. No one had bidding wars of 40-50 people willing to spend up to $250k on a plot of land just to then build a house of top of that....multiple times a month every month.

I don't know where you come from, but there's nothing special about The Villages Real Estate market. It operates like the real estate market all over the USA, other than perhaps a little more manipulated than most, because of the Developer's interests.

In other words, the market here isn't different than anywhere else, other than for the most gullible, dazzled by the Developer's smoke & mirror show.

amen

The Villages is up to 115+ pools now. Of course it’s not practical to swim at all of them considering the size of TV, but some do take on that challenge. We’ve enjoyed 5 so far, with the one that’s a 2 minute walk from our home the least used one for us. For us though the downside to TV pools is the water gets too hot in the warmest months of July/August, which for us personally is not a refreshing experience.

As far as we know and have been told, there’s no indoor pool in The Villages.

The Villages is very different from most places in the country when it comes to pools. In The Villages you can recover 100 percent of the initial cost of building a pool if done efficiently on the right lot less maintenance and operating costs.

Look at homes that are for sale that are similar, only one with pool and one not. That will tell you. In our neighborhood of Hawkins a few homes (all Verandas) have sold recently with similar views, square footage, pools, and upgrades as my home at $1M -$1.2M. All of us bought our homes 4 years ago new in the low to mid $600K. You do get your money back in my opinion.

I have met people who don’t want a pool because in previous life it wasn’t fun, and those who can’t take on the financial aspect say they never want a pool. I swim everyday 2-3 miles 11.5 months a year. That isn’t going to happen at 4 am in any public TV pool. Plus after I sat in any of the 6 areas of comfortable cushion loveseat, sectional, rockers, or polywood chairs read a book with only sounds of birds and the waterfall. No noise of conversation with 10+ people rudely talking on speaker phone

We had opportunity for pool at build, but definitely chose not to use T&D. I know 80% say it’s the only way to go. However we used a family owned company that has been in business more than 50 years, with employees averaging 40 years with the company.
We built larger, with exactly what we wanted in design, (T&D @ build 2 designs no exception) and better equipment than T&D offered. Still saving money, complete in 9 weeks, and customer service better Costco:p.

I don’t understand all the complaints about upkeep. I test the water once a week add appropriate chemicals in less than 2 minutes.
As far as cleaning it does take 30 seconds to drop C-3PO into the pool. 3 hours later, every wall, step, and floor is cleaned just like the first day it was new.

My monthly cost including cost of robot, is at $23.56, less during December to March, more July and August. Still averaging under $24.

According to Seco my added bill is $19-26 a month. Theoretically if one can afford to build the pool, $50 a month isn’t a problem. As far as insurance it was $264 more a year. The dog up north added an extra $109 a year. So the pool wasn’t that much of a step up.

New England no, Villages yes!

Pool in the villages.
 

We have a pool/spa in the villages. As far as maintenance it’s more work cleaning the toilet than a pool. Since pools are enclosed and have salt generators very little maintenance is needed. Up north our pool was total work. Also values do go up on homes with pools. Just look at your sales of homes in the villages

No and they are a total waste of money. TV has plenty of pools you already pay for.

It does increase it, as does the birdcage which surrounds it. I don't know numbers since I have never priced it both with and without a pool. But I don't think it is exorbitant.