When we were looking, granite or quartz countertops were on our "would like to have" list, rather than our "must have" list. It didn't matter to us if the house we bought had hi-def laminate.

Can’t go wrong with laminate we find that no matter what surface the food is prepared on the quality/taste of the food has nothing to do with the counter top.:icon_wink:

I doubt that you will recoup the cost...

As a buyer, I would like the fun of picking my own counter tops.

No!!! Granite is too personal, I sold real estate for 20 yrs and you will not recoup your money. You can offer a allowance to new buyer for them to get granite after close, that works well.

Our food gets cold from the ceiling fan. What is the pet warmer that you bought from Chewy?

You never recoup the cost of installation on the short term. If you like trendy, that us fine but just like this year’s hot color, it will be different next year. I personally love granite, you can put very hot items on granite and you cannot do that on quartz. Sealing granite is easy and only has to be done a couple of times a year. I would let the buyer pick their own and not make an issue out of it, unless it is damaged.

It has been my experience that when you are selling a home don't go crazy at the end and invest a lot of money. The laminate that you have, assuming it is in good condition, should just be left alone. Remember people buy houses and then they made changes to their taste.

may sell easier, but you won't recoup the cost. plus, maybe the potential buy won't like the new counter top

Just had a conversation with our realtor about this. He sold us our house in August of last year. I was actually asking about how much we could build before “over building“ in terms of building a birdcage on a corner lot and enclosing our small lanai. He offered, unsolicited, that there were two obstacles as a realtor he commonly encounters that need to be overcome: #1 was lack of granite and #2 was an unenclosed lanai. To put in context, we have a screened lanai that backs up to another screened lanai.”kissing lanais.” He offered that, in order to get the price over $400,000, you need to have these two things. I’m just leaving this here without regard to stating whether or not I agree because I have no idea. But this realtor is knowledgeable and experienced and ,at the time I was having a conversation, it did make some sense. But some of the other comments also makes sense and it does make a huge difference as to what the buyer is looking for i.e. turn key or fixer-upper. And since there’s a debate about whether granite is still favored, maybe you could replace the word granite with ‘upgraded countertops” and it may have more application. We have a very expensive granite back home but did not blink an eye really at the high definition laminate that we have in the villages. But I do think we would have views it even more favorably if it had some form of “upgraded countertops.“ We were looking for something we didn’t have to do a lot to in order to enjoy the home. We did encounter a house while looking for this house that had extreme granite that they had spent a lot of money on that was horrendous. It would’ve been awful to have bought that house and had to rip a perfectly good yet atrocious looking granite. So there’s a lot of angles to this apparently. Good luck.

go to Chewy.com & look up small pet warmer, they plug into an outlet on your counter--we only eat @ the counter, never use our dining room

Its called "A small animal heated pad"=made by K & H manufacturing, inc--only negative thing its made in China

reduce the selling price for the cost of counter top change,

Personally we both dislike both stones, too cold to the touch.

On our new build hi-def lam was $600, Corrian $2800, stone 6-10K

We like the Corrian choices went with one that looks like quartz

Yes and I am one of them. Quartz, For many reasons.

I would suggest you have a Broker look at it and discuss pricing before you put $7000 to $10000 into granite counters. A proper market analysis /Broker opinion of value would be best. You may need something else done that you would get 100% return versus a deterrent because someone does not like your selection. You are welcome to call me to assess. Uptown Properties. "Work with a Broker Why choose less?" 30 years experience.

Quartz is a better option