Every renovation buys two things: a house you like living in more, and a house a buyer will pay more for. Read NAR's homeowner survey next to two resale surveys and a pattern shows up: the projects homeowners love most are, almost exactly, the ones buyers are estimated to pay back least. That is our reading of the numbers below, not a finding either report states.
What the Joy Score measures
The National Association of REALTORS® and the National Association of the Remodeling Industry publish the Remodeling Impact Report. The 2025 edition draws on three surveys: NAR asked 806 homeowners who had finished a project how they felt about it, 4,005 Realtors estimated what each project adds at resale, and 177 NARI remodelers estimated what each one costs.
The homeowner survey produces the Joy Score. NAR asked owners how they felt when they saw the finished project, combined the share who felt happy with the share who felt satisfied, and scaled the result from 1 to 10. Across all projects, 43% felt happy and 38% felt satisfied; the typical project scored 8.2. And 64% said they have a greater desire to be in their home since the work was done.
The perfect 10s
NAR states that three projects earned a perfect Joy Score of 10: a kitchen upgrade, an added primary suite and a new roof. Its chart then places nine more in order. Read highest first, the whole chart runs: the three perfect 10s, then the bathroom renovation fourth, a complete kitchen renovation fifth, painting one interior room sixth, new wood flooring seventh, a basement conversion to living area eighth, painting the exterior siding ninth, a new front door tenth, new siding eleventh and the garage door twelfth. (Source: NAR/NARI 2025 Remodeling Impact Report, Joy Scores from 806 homeowners. NAR states the three perfect 10s in its text; the other scores appear only in a chart, so we report the chart's order, not its values.)
Two of the three perfect 10s are the projects people picture when they say "renovation": the kitchen and the primary suite. The third, a new roof, is a 10 for a different reason; more on that below. The bathroom renovation sits right behind them. At the bottom of the chart: new siding, and the garage door.
What buyers pay back for the same projects
NAR's Realtors and remodelers priced most of the same work. Put the two halves of the report side by side, in the order of the Joy chart: the kitchen upgrade, a perfect 10, is estimated to recover 60% of its cost at resale; the new primary suite, a perfect 10, 54%; the bathroom renovation, fourth, 50%; the complete kitchen renovation, fifth, 60%; the basement conversion, eighth, 71%; and a new front door, tenth, 80% in fiberglass and 100% in steel. Recovery is the Realtors' estimate of value added as a share of the remodelers' estimate of cost. NAR scores joy for "new front door" without splitting it by material, its cost table calls the kitchen upgrade a "minor kitchen upgrade," and it publishes no cost-recovery figure for new roofing.
The two perfect 10s that NAR also priced are estimated to recover 60% and 54% of their cost. The bathroom renovation, right behind them for joy, recovers 50%: the lowest in NAR's cost table. The only project in that table estimated to recover its full cost, a steel front door, comes tenth of twelve in NAR's Joy chart.
The other report runs the same way
The other resale ranking uses its own method, national job-cost estimates and resale estimates from real estate professionals in 119 markets, and covers 28 projects. It mostly runs the opposite way from NAR's Joy Score chart.
- The garage door comes last of the 12 projects in NAR's Joy chart. It is #1 of 28 in the other ranking ($4,672 in, an estimated $12,507 back at resale, 267.7%), according to the Remodeling 2025 Cost vs. Value Report (www.costvsvalue.com).
- Siding comes 11th of NAR's 12. Fiber-cement siding is one of only five projects in the Cost vs. Value ranking that return more than they cost.
- The primary suite, a perfect 10, is #26 of 28 as a midrange addition: $170,517 in, an estimated $55,097 back, 32.3%. The upscale version is last of the 28.
- The kitchen: a complete renovation comes fifth of NAR's 12 for joy, and the Cost vs. Value Report's midrange major remodel is estimated to recover 50.9% ($82,793 in, $42,130 back).
Two surveys, two methods, the same direction. Our reading: what owners love most is what they pay for, and what pays at resale ranks low among the projects NAR charts.
There is one exception, and it is worth knowing. The Cost vs. Value Report's minor kitchen remodel (new cabinet fronts, counters, appliances and flooring, with the layout left alone) is #5 of 28 at 112.9%: $28,458 in, an estimated $32,141 back. NAR's kitchen upgrade, the closest project in its report, is a perfect 10 for joy. The two reports disagree on what comes back (112.9% in the Cost vs. Value estimate, 60% in NAR's), but it is the one project near the top of both lists.
Why most people should still buy the joy
NAR asked the same 806 owners for the main reason they remodeled. Worn-out surfaces, finishes and materials (27%), better energy efficiency (19%), wanting a change (18%), and preparing to sell within two years (18%).
The top answer has a bill behind it. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Expenditure Surveys put the average household's spending on maintenance and repair services for an owned home at $1,743 in 2024, three times the $576 of 2010; homeowners insurance went from $345 to $737 over the same years. Those are averages across all U.S. households, renters included, so the figure for owners alone runs higher. When keeping a house up costs this much more, replacing what is worn out stops being optional, and the resale figure is beside the point.
Chart: average annual spending per consumer unit on maintenance and repair services for an owned dwelling and on homeowners insurance, 2010 to 2024, averaged over all consumer units. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Surveys, retrieved October 2026.
So 82% gave a main reason other than selling within two years. For them, the resale number is not the return; it is the partial refund. A primary suite that scores a perfect 10 and is estimated to recover 54% of its cost is a good purchase for someone staying ten years, as long as they know that is what they are buying. The appetite is there: 92% of NAR's homeowners said they would remodel more of their home if cost were not a factor.
Staying is also where the cushion is. The Federal Reserve's household balance sheet puts owners' equity at 72% of the value of all household real estate in the second quarter of 2026, up from 46% at the 2012 low and a share last seen in the early 1960s. That is a national total, not anyone's statement: taken together, the country's owners own more of their homes than at any point in most readers' lifetimes, which is the position from which a project can be bought for the joy of it.
Chart: owners' equity in household real estate as a share of its market value, quarterly, 1990 to the second quarter of 2026. Source: Federal Reserve Board, Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States, household balance sheet (table B.101), retrieved October 2026.
The roof is a 10 for a different reason
New roofing scored a perfect 10 alongside the dream projects, but nobody dreams about a roof. A plausible reading is relief: a new roof ends a worry the owner has been carrying. That is an interpretation, not a survey finding. NAR publishes no cost-recovery figure for roofing, but 37% of its Realtors recommend a new roof before listing; what a roof returns in the other report is in Windows, Roof, Siding.
The weather does a lot of the deciding. The National Weather Service logged between 6,272 and 17,768 hail events a year across the United States from 2000 through 2025, with 9,205 in 2025. A hailstorm can end a roof's life on the weather's schedule rather than the owner's, which is one more reason a new roof reads as relief rather than desire.
Chart: hail events in NOAA's Storm Events Database by year, 2000 to 2025; 2026 is left out because the year is incomplete. The counts are reports, not a physical measure of hail: the National Weather Service raised its severe-hail threshold from three-quarters of an inch to one inch in 2010. Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, accessed October 2026.
What to do with this, by situation
Staying five years or more. Buy joy on purpose. The kitchen upgrade and the primary suite are NAR's perfect 10s, with the bathroom right behind. Budget for 50% to 60% of the cost coming back at resale in NAR's estimates, not all of it, and do not call it an investment.
Selling within two years. Buy what the resale estimates favor, and start outside. A garage door ($4,672, 267.7% in the Cost vs. Value estimate) and a steel entry door ($2,435, 216.4%) cost $7,107 together, less than the same report's midrange bathroom remodel, and they are the first things a buyer sees.
Want both. Three projects appear in NAR's Joy chart and hold up better at resale:
- A basement conversion: both reports estimate 71% recovered.
- A new front door: 80% to 100% in NAR's estimates, and 216.4% for the Cost vs. Value Report's steel entry door.
- A minor kitchen refresh: a perfect 10 as NAR's kitchen upgrade; 112.9% in the Cost vs. Value estimate and 60% in NAR's.
Painting a single room is the quiet fourth: it comes sixth of NAR's 12 for joy, and 41% of Realtors recommend it before listing. NAR publishes no cost-recovery figure for it.
The rule
Know which one you are buying before you write the check. A perfect 10 that gets back a little over half its cost is a good purchase if joy is what you wanted. It is a bad investment if you thought it was one.
The three kitchens are compared in The Kitchen Trap. The pattern across the full Cost vs. Value ranking is in The 2025 Renovation ROI Rankings, and the Realtors' pre-listing list is in Before You List.