Guides & rules
Does a Kitchen Remodel Increase Home Value?
Yes — but by less than the figure you have probably read, and the gap between the national number and the Kansas City one is large enough to change how you should budget.
The Kansas City figures
A minor midrange kitchen remodel in Kansas City recouped 86.6% of its cost at resale against 112.9% nationally; a major midrange remodel recouped 42.5% here against 50.9% nationally — according to the Remodeling 2025 Cost vs. Value Report (www.costvsvalue.com).
© 2025 Zonda Media, a Delaware Corporation. Complete data from the Remodeling 2025 Cost vs. Value Report can be downloaded free at www.costvsvalue.com.
The gap is on the resale side, not the cost side
This is the part worth understanding. A minor midrange remodel costs essentially the same in Kansas City as it does nationally. What differs is what the market pays for it afterwards. So the shortfall is not a sign that local contractors charge more — it is a reflection of what the resale market here returns.
What that means in practice
The widely quoted "over 100% return" is a national average, and repeating it locally overstates what a Kansas City homeowner should expect by roughly twenty-six percentage points on a minor remodel. Any local page quoting the national figure without saying so is, however unintentionally, overstating your return.
The practical consequence is about which project to choose rather than whether to remodel at all. Smaller, well-executed scopes recover a far higher share of their cost than large ones — 86.6% against 42.5% — so if resale is genuinely the driver, the cheaper project is the better financial decision, not the more ambitious one.
When resale should not be the deciding factor
If you are staying, this calculation matters less than how the room works. Years of a kitchen you like is a real return that no survey measures, and it is a perfectly good reason to spend more than the resale maths justifies — provided that is a decision rather than an assumption.
Common questions
Which remodel returns the most at resale here?
Why is the national figure so much higher?
Sources
Have a kitchen in mind?
We quote around the rules this guide describes.