Buying the ugly duplex-shaped single family at 148k, the whole deal is the kitchen decision

I don't know the reno side at all, but the part that stopped me is the six months of holding. You wrote it as a cost line and then said short hold justifies being over on the 70 percent test. Which one are you actually planning for? If it's really six months at 1,150 that's 6,900 and it's already in your 187, fine. If you're mentally selling in nine weeks then your justification and your budget disagree with each other.

Two agents said 222 and one said buyers don't care. Ask the two who said 222 for the addresses that support it. If they can name three closed sales with painted original cabinets and give you the sale prices, that's data. If they say it's a feel, it's a feel. Also depends on your state, a dozen or so don't make sale prices public at all, so in some markets your agent's MLS data is the only source and you should ask what they're looking at.

Look inside the oak boxes before you price either option. Solid faces on 1962 cabinets often means particleboard or thin plywood shelves and drawer boxes that are stapled, and painted boxes with sagging shelves and drawers that stick reads cheap in a way photos hide but a showing does not. If the carcasses are decent, a third path is paint the boxes, replace the drawer boxes and slides, and spend the counter money on a solid surface remnant instead of laminate. Somewhere around 7,500 to 8,500 in my experience. Laminate counter next to painted oak is the combination that reads as landlord grade.

Also your 26k has no contingency in it. On a cosmetic scope I still carry 10 percent because paint always finds something, usually a bathroom subfloor.

Basic question I want to understand properly. If 148 is over the 70 percent number and everyone here agrees the deal is thin, why is the answer ever option B? Spending more on a deal you already overpaid on seems like the direction you'd want to be very careful about. Is it that the higher spend actually reduces your risk of sitting, or is it that people get attached and want the nicer version?

@compass both happen, and the real version of B is a carry argument. Faster sale at a similar price can beat a slow sale at a higher one once you count 1,150 a month plus whatever the money costs.

@solder what's your financing? You said six months of holding at 1,150 but didn't say whether that's taxes, insurance and utilities or whether it includes debt service. If there's a hard money payment inside that number I'd like to see it broken out, because that's the line that decides whether you can afford to be wrong about the kitchen.

The middle option @girder described is the one I'd chase. New drawer boxes and slides is the thing buyers actually touch at a showing.

I did a version of this on a 1958 ranch, painted the oak, laminate counter, kept a white range that matched nothing. Listed at what I thought was market. Sat 51 days, two price cuts, closed 11 under my first ask. The feedback that came back through my agent every single time was the kitchen.

What I concluded after: it wasn't the painted cabinets. It was that the counter and the appliances made the painted cabinets read as a cover-up. Next one I painted boxes and spent 3,400 on counter and a matching appliance set and it moved in nine days. So my answer to your 10,700 question is that you probably don't need the new boxes at all, you need the two things sitting next to them to look intentional. Somewhere around 8k, not 14.8.

Reading this I realize I've been thinking about flips as a construction question and it's mostly a pricing question with a construction bill attached. @solder does your 235 ARV assume the same finish level as the 248 comps or the 232 comps? Because if 235 already assumes a redone kitchen, then option A doesn't get you to 235 and the whole spread you're comparing against is wrong from the start.

@kestrel that's the question in the thread. @solder said 232 to 248 for updated and 205 for dated with newer mechanicals, and then called ARV 235, which is the bottom of the updated band. So the 235 already has a redone kitchen in it. Option A likely lands you nearer 218 to 222, which is the number the two agents gave him.

Which means the comparison isn't A at 235 versus B at 235. It's A at 220 with all-in 187, netting maybe 19 after selling costs, against B at 240 with all-in 197.7, netting about 28. B looks better on that arithmetic, and it's also the version where you're 10k deeper on a deal you bought 9.5 over the line. I'd want @girder's middle path priced by an actual cabinet guy before I picked, and I'd want to know what the money costs, which nobody has gotten out of you yet.