How much more does a renovated home sell for in Durham Region?

Our own data first: 18 completed Durham projects

Most of what is written about renovation returns is American and generic. Here is what our own completed projects show. Across the 18 Renos for Revenue projects we have funded, managed and sold in and around Durham Region, the return on renovation spending broke down like this: the median project returned roughly $1.95 in gross sale-price lift for every dollar of renovation, the 25th percentile returned about $1.38 and the 75th percentile about $2.76. Put differently, half of our projects turned each renovation dollar into roughly two to nearly three dollars of sale price. On the heavier-scope end, dated homes that needed real work sold on aggregate about 22 percent above their as-is value after renovation.

In one real Durham case, an automated tool valued 132 Winona Ave at about $695,757 as-is. After a pre-sale renovation, it sold for $980,000.

What the industry research says, labeled as such

Independent studies, all US-based unless noted, point the same direction. Revive Real Estate’s April 2025 analysis of more than 1,200 completed pre-sale renovations reported an average of $145,000 in additional seller profit, a 112 percent average return on the renovation spend and sale prices averaging 28 percent above selling as-is; its earlier research estimated as-is sellers leave 15 to 20 percent of potential proceeds on the table. Curbio’s 2022 report measured project-level returns across its markets: kitchen refreshes at 377 percent, hardwood floor refinishing at 348 percent, basic listing prep at nearly 300 percent. On the Canadian side, a Royal LePage survey of hundreds of brokers found a kitchen renovation can add up to 20 percent to a home’s value and a bathroom about 16 percent. And the remodel-industry benchmark, the NAR and NARI Remodeling Impact Report, shows the flip side: large structural projects recover far less, a full kitchen remodel recovering roughly two thirds of its cost. The pattern across every dataset is the same one our projects show: targeted, buyer-visible cosmetic work is where the gap lives.

The discount on the other side of the ledger

The renovated premium is only half the gap; the dated discount is the other half. Zillow’s analysis of over two million 2024 listings found homes described as remodeled sold at a 3.7 percent premium, the highest of any listing keyword, while fixer-uppers sold 7.3 percent below comparable homes, and by mid-2026 Zillow’s updated research put the fixer-upper discount at about 14 percent, the steepest it has recorded. Off the open market the discount is contractual: cash buyers and flippers price with the 70 percent rule, roughly 70 to 80 percent of the renovated value minus repair costs, which is why the three-way comparison treats a private cash sale as the most expensive convenience an estate can buy. Demand data explains the spread: 77 percent of buyers in Curbio’s survey would not consider a home that is not move-in ready, and 76 percent of top agents in HomeLight’s late-2025 survey called move-in-ready condition the market’s biggest selling point.

What this means for a Durham estate home

Estate homes are disproportionately the dated ones, decades of ownership, original kitchens, and they sit at the wide end of the gap. For an executor (estate trustee), that gap is not just money, it is duty: the obligation to pursue fair market value, documented. The honest first step costs nothing: measure the gap for the specific home, an as-is value and an after-renovation projection side by side, and then decide with both numbers on the table. Sometimes the answer is sell as-is. The point of the data is that the decision should never be made without knowing the size of the discount being accepted.

Methodology note: Hinchey figures are computed from our 18 completed Renos for Revenue projects, analyzed July 2026, comparing scoped renovation cost against achieved sale price relative to documented as-is value. Third-party figures are labeled with their publisher and year and reflect the markets each study covered.