The Kitchen ROI Hack: Budget Renovation Ideas That Increase Home Value Fast

Christopher Seman (00:00)
And then again, three to five days to do the final project. You walk into a home, it looks like a brand new kitchen. It’s gonna be probably under $10,000. And which, you know, based on most of the statistics in the industry, whether it’s a

Zillow

or realtor.com, that’s gonna return anywhere from 80 to 110 % of your investment. And the other thing it’s gonna do for, think that’s really critical for investors is when someone walks into the home, ⁓ that passion and excited about being and living in that space will get them to put down offers faster and get that investor their return faster.

Scott Bursey (02:07)
I’m your host, Scott Bursey. And on this show, we focus on the strategies required to move beyond single deals and build a truly scalable real estate enterprise. Today, we have an expert joining us to deep dive into the essential discipline of home improvements.

the key to maximizing property value and ensuring project execution. Joining us, Christopher Seman from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Christopher, thanks for being here.

Christopher Seman (02:40)
Hey, thanks for having me, Scott. Excited to be here.

Scott Bursey (02:44)
to have you in the show. So before we dive into the market dynamics of things, if you could give our audience a quick version of your journey. How did you get into the home improvement sector?

Christopher Seman (02:58)
Well, I like to think that that journey, you we all have plans and then, you know, God laughs and you go down a different direction. And I took that I took that right turn when I thought I was going left. And ⁓ I had been working out of college in retail space. I’ve been working in the home improvement space and a competitor of Home Depot’s that had launched out of the East Coast and had been doing that for a couple of years when I got an opportunity to leave the retail grind of the hours and start getting into ⁓

actually it was ⁓ commercial maintenance in the apartment industry. And I know it’s all sound like convoluted, but the next thing you know, I had this opportunity. There’s a local startup in Ann Arbor that was doing a franchise system in the handyman space. And they were looking for somebody who had P &L experience, who could help their business owners become truly successful business owners. And, you know, it sounded fun. Sounded like something I could do for a year or two. And ⁓ 24 years later, here I am still doing it. And ⁓ it’s something

I just, once you get, you just don’t know when that thing’s gonna reach out and touch you and you’re gonna fall in love with it until you actually do it. And that’s what happened to me. that’s a really brief summary of the journey. But it was something that I built up a lot of experience in the trades. And so it just was kind of a natural fit to help business owners be successful in that same arena. And it’s been a ride ever since.

Scott Bursey (04:23)
yes, ⁓ fruitful ride I can sense and I can also sense the passion that you still have at this stage of your career. That’s awesome. So Christopher, what is the most single effective home improvement strategy an investor can make right now to maximize their property value?

Christopher Seman (04:44)
Well, I think you look at a lot of things in…

you know, the home primarily, you know, if you’re looking at it from an investor perspective and you want to be able to get the highest rate of return, you’re going to look at those things that are going to be relatively quick to do. They’re going to make a big visual impression on the consumer

and yet aren’t going to cost you months to get completed. And they’re not going to take, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. So what we, you know, kind of tell you a little bit about Nhance and what we specialize in, why I’m so excited to be part of this organization is that we can come in and basically with our proprietary coatings and process

can tear any kitchen into a brand new kitchen without having to change the layout or cabinet boxes. And we can do that whole process. If you use the existing doors, the entire project takes three to five days. If you need us to order you new doors to give you a new look and feel, can, takes us about a week to get those doors.

then again, three to five days to do the final project. You walk into a home, it looks like a brand new kitchen. It’s gonna be probably under $10,000. And which, you know, based on most of the statistics in the industry, whether it’s a

Zillow

or realtor.com, that’s gonna return anywhere from 80 to 110 % of your investment. And the other thing it’s gonna do for, think that’s really critical for investors is when someone walks into the home, ⁓ that passion and excited about being and living in that space will get them to put down offers faster and get that investor their return faster.

Because like anything, when you got money sitting there, that money could be earning more money in a new investment or in some other area instead of

sitting in a home that you’ve already put the work and energy and effort into.

Scott Bursey (07:09)
That’s so key, critical. Thank you for that. And what’s the biggest red flag in a renovation budget most investors tend to overlook perhaps?

Christopher Seman (07:21)
Red flag, mean, I think it’s interesting. You know, I’m just going a different, you know, kind of different direction. But, you know, one of the things that I think as a homeowner, we get super excited about are things like new countertops. And we want to get the best and the fanciest countertop existing out there. And yet countertops have been proven consistently to have some of the poorest return on investment that they don’t make the same impact. And I think part of the reason is, is you start getting into like, if you have a cabinet and you’re making it, whether it’s, it’s you turn it into a

white cabinet. That’s pretty neutral to the consumer and can be very appealing to a wide variety of customers. If you pick a unique stone pattern or a unique color pattern to your marble or your surfaces, that might be personal to you, but it might not appeal to the consumer directly. so the common thing there is like if you’re going to do this and you’re looking at new countertops, find one that’s relatively neutral and allows the customer to project themselves into the home instead of getting

to feel for your personal taste.

Scott Bursey (08:23)
On that note, are there any specific materials or design trends you’re doubling down on to maximize your ROI this next year or the foreseeable future?

Christopher Seman (08:37)
Well, you know, for us, design trends, like, you know, one of the things that’s really interesting about design trends is there, you know, if you try to match the current design trend, you know, with the impact of influencers and social media, that it’s almost impossible to keep up. And so when you’re looking at your home, if you’re looking for an, there’s two ways we always discuss people. If you’re looking at it, how you’re going to live there, we’re talking a different story than if you’re going to be an investor. And if you’re an investor, what we talk to you about is sticking to the more, neutral and the more common trends, which, know, shockingly,

you know, is still the white kitchen. It still hits that mark. And then if you have a lighter ⁓ wood currently in there, but it’s just looking a little beat up and ragged, ⁓ we just recommend a renewal back to that lighter cabinet and make it look pop and make it look brand new. You know, one of the things that Nhance does with its coatings is it has this process called light speed. And it’s just a fancy way of saying we put in a ⁓ very resistant to damage ⁓ oils and ⁓ adhesion principle. It uses a small nail.

technology to kind of adhere to both the cabinet and to protect you on the outside, but it means elasticity. So if like you took that big pot and you accidentally bash the side of your cabinet, the cabinet wood might be dented, but the coating is still going to stay and not peel or crack off. And I know those are things we can do either in a natural wood look or color look, but as an investor, I’d highly recommend you stay pretty neutral

and don’t get too crazy with the new current trends because the way trends are going right now, six months later,

it’s probably a new trend.

Scott Bursey (10:44)
makes perfect sense and along those lines, what do you feel that your company’s biggest strength is right now in the marketplace?

Christopher Seman (10:54)
Well, I think in our marketplace, we occupy this unique niche that we’re professional coding, like we’re trying to duplicate something you’d get right out of the manufacturing facility. So compared to a paint, when someone paints a cabinet, we have more durability, ⁓ more of a pop, more of a new cabinet feel. And we also can do our projects in three to five days. So when you look at remodeling, having been in this industry so long, one of the things that really

the homeowner is the amount of time it takes some of these projects to be completed and how it totally disrupts your life and it stops you from doing whatever it is that you want to do next. And you know from an investor perspective that means that’s just time you don’t have ⁓

to sell or show or whatever else you need to do in the home because it’s all disrupt and you’re waiting for this contractor to come in with this component and this piece needs to come in from somewhere in special order and all of it just kind of combines into. So in our niche what we always say is we can give you a brand new kitchen in three to five days. When we’re done with your kitchen on Friday at five you can have a happy hour at 530 and show it off to all your friends, neighbors. They can touch it, they can feel it, it doesn’t even matter and you’re ready to go. And it’s a live in home ready to go.

We use all low VOC stuff, so everything that we actually do spray in the home, which is mostly just the boxes, your house isn’t going to reek for weeks. All that stuff’s kind critical to what we do. We really shoot down that avenue of giving you the new look and feel without any major disruption to the home, without any major costs either, because we can come in significantly less than a major remodel. And then why are you remodeling? A lot of times we remodel because we don’t like the cabinet. Well, with new doors, new hardware, use your same boxes,

never changes for the most part. And then boom, I can get you a brand new looking kitchen. And especially most kitchens, really, we can’t do much with the layout anyways. So let’s save the money, get you the look, and get you a lot less disruption into your home.

Scott Bursey (12:55)
Hey, when your team’s done, I’m sure that’s a fest of happy hour on Friday evening. Let me ask you this. go ahead. Go ahead.

Christopher Seman (13:02)
Yeah, we like to recommend, yeah.

No, I was gonna say, we like to recommend all of our franchise locations. When we finish up a project, we try to give you a couple hundred dollars for a pizza party or something like that to have people over and be able to see it. And we feel like our work speaks as our greatest salesperson. So.

We kind of encourage that kind of continual relationship, even though you might only change your kitchen every seven years. can, you know, all your friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers, we want to make sure they know what they can get as well. Sorry. So that’s

Scott Bursey (13:34)
absolutely. Hey,

that’s great strategy. I love it. What may be one of your challenges right now as you see it, Christopher?

Christopher Seman (13:46)
⁓

You know, I think in this particular industry, there’s a couple different challenges for us. One is, you know, making sure you’re a clear differentiator from what it is that you actually offer. What’s the niche you’re in and how can that really help the consumer? Our franchise owners are tend to be some great, they’re hardworking. They’ve gotten into this business because they want to have people get beautiful kitchens. But sometimes they’re not the best people at articulating how this kitchen is different than a painter, how this kitchen is different than a full kitchen remodeler.

⁓ As we get into these scenarios, a lot of what we do and spend our time with is helping support them in education, training, ⁓ sales skills. If you’re in the sales space at all, know that sales skills need to be refreshed all the time. It’s not something you learn once and just go on your own. You keep refreshing and growing and getting better at it. As the world gets complex, why would you select and enhance ⁓ owner to come in and do your kitchen?

that’s something that we have to continue to fight every single day and we see that as really the opportunity as well as the challenge.

Scott Bursey (14:56)
Sure, let’s continue down that road. What is your best strategy, I guess Christopher, for finding and keeping reliable contractors in the current market?

Christopher Seman (15:50)
Well, for us, because it’s a unique proprietary process, we have to find people who have had some sort of application experience in the past. So maybe they were a painter at one point in time, maybe they’ve done painting through handyman work, they’ve got some familiarity with spraying applications, coatings. could be for automobiles, it could be for manufacturing, it could be in the home. And then we get that kind of baseline to start, and then we have an entire training program set up with them to kind

ingrain them in and then what we like to do is make sure that our compensation is know top in the market because one we want that quality and two we want that retention of that employee and so we pay is extremely well for that industry and we want to keep encouraging people to develop and invest in their technicians is what we call them and you know some of the things that we’re doing here at the corporate level to help our owners in the field is that we have identified 21 common scenarios that would

cause application issues if you don’t prepare the surfaces or the product appropriately. Let’s say you’re in Florida and the humidity is 100%. You know, that changes how applications are applied. And what we have done is we working through these new AI tools, we’re able to create an app that goes right on the technician’s phone. He can just type in the weather conditions and it’ll give him, you know, different prep things that he needs to do to make sure that that kitchen is going to be, you know, outstanding. And I feel like in any industry, if you want to

retain people, if you can give them a sense of success, that’s where people want to be. Where they feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves and also something that they can be successful and they can participate and be a key member in that success organization. And that’s what we’re trying to continue to drive and develop because ⁓ I think every industry that hires people, how do you get the best people and how do you retain the best people should be a focus for you at all times.

Scott Bursey (17:49)
Absolutely and people feel much better when they’re contributing especially in this sort of a positive business What would you like homeowners to know? About the business if you could convey a message a single of single message What would that be that you’d like homeowners to know about the company?

Christopher Seman (18:12)
We can change your life by changing your kitchen, but we can do it in less than a week. you know, I mean, Scott, as you know…

Scott Bursey (18:20)
I love it.

Christopher Seman (18:24)
The kitchen, the home, that’s the heart of the home. And that’s where people spend their time. That’s where they gather. That’s where they have their meals. That’s where they share time together. In this world, it’s so disconnected with screens and social media and streaming and everything like that. It is the one heart that we can all still bond around. And a lot of times, you know, we can get to spare. You know, I can’t spend $100,000 to get my dream kitchen. Well, I can get you a color change for $4,000 to $6,000. It’ll make you feel like you’re in a brand new kitchen.

and that will change so much and ⁓ make you proud again of being in this home that’s your largest investment for most Americans.

Scott Bursey (19:03)
Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more.

It’s one of my favorite places. That’s for sure. Christopher, we’ve discussed so much today about maximizing value through home improvements, contractor management and navigating renovation risk. If you could leave our audience with one single overarching principle for moving beyond single deals to building a truly lasting, scalable real estate enterprise. What would that be as it relates to your business, home improvements?

Christopher Seman (19:35)
Well, know, the primary thing about home improvement and you know this I’m going to go industry experience, not just the enhanced kitchen experiences as an investor, be loyal to your contractors who provide the value and can operate in a time frame that works for you and find those people and develop good relationships where you’re going back and forth because as you’re helping their business, they’re going to help your business. And this is a really an industry where personal relationships and connections

and it’s an industry that sometimes especially if you’re on the investor side understand that sometimes your contractors are not always treated as at the same level of professionalism as some other industries are and if you can provide that back to them you’re gonna get faster service you’re gonna get your projects done at a better cost and you’re gonna be able to move on and do multiple project at the same time instead of being you know the one house at a time investor which is nice but it’s not gonna meet many people’s goals so this is how you can

expand and grow your business because in your community right now, your good contractors know the other good contractors and if you treat them well, they’ll treat you well and they’ll get you those names, those connections.

Scott Bursey (20:47)
Absolutely. Those relationships are everything. They’re key. They’re so critical. And those are great words of wisdom. Thank you for sharing your deep expertise with the Real Estate Pros community here today.

Christopher Seman (21:01)
Well, thank you so much for having me on, Scott. This has been a delight and I really enjoyed the time with you and I hopefully your audience was able to get something out of it and I just wish everyone the most success. I love entrepreneurs and I love the entrepreneurial journey and I wish everyone the most success they can possibly have in it.

Scott Bursey (21:21)
and for our listeners who want to follow your work, connect with you or learn more about your insights. What’s the best way that they can reach out to you?

Christopher Seman (21:29)
I think the easiest way is always on the internet. it’s, we’re at Nhance.com, that’s N-H-A-N-C-E.com. And we’re part of the Belfor franchise group. So there’s ultimately many opportunities within there. If you wanna take a look at either one of those locations, it all connects us back to your local Nhance, who’s going to be the person who’s gonna sit here and be your partner into the future.

Scott Bursey (21:56)
And I know our audience is walking away with multiple golden nuggets from today’s show and thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. If you found value in today’s episode, please make sure you’re subscribed until next time. Keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode everyone.