The same numbers, side by side, with your figures in them.
Most people run this in their head, and a head usually rounds in one direction. Put the real figures in and look at both columns at once. Every assumption here is yours to change, and none of it is a quote.
Enter what the house would sell for, what you owe, a renovation budget and the price of the next home. Both columns appear here.
Stay assumes the renovation is paid in cash. Move assumes the next home is bought with what is left from this one, plus a mortgage for the rest at this week’s average rate. A lender decides the rate. A contractor decides the budget. This shows the shape of the decision.
The one figure above that is a guess is what your home would sell for. I will replace it with a real value range, built from what has actually closed near you, and send this comparison back with the right number in it.
Stay. Renovate. Move. Let’s figure out what comes next.
The arithmetic tells you what each answer costs. It cannot tell you whether the house can take the renovation at all, or whether the next one already does what this one would need a contractor to do. That is a walk through the house, and it is the part I have done for 25 years. Here is how I look at it.
Not sure what you could afford on the other side of a move? Run that test first.