Every week somebody in Palm Beach or Broward asks me the same two questions. First: “How much is it going to cost?” Then the real one: “How much is too much to put into a kitchen — or any room?”
And every time, I explain the same rule: thirty percent of what the house is worth, total. Then you break it down room by room.
The 30% rule
Keep your total renovation spending at or under 30% of what your home is worth today. Everything counts toward it — labor, materials, permits, design, and the cushion you set aside for surprises.
- Home worth $500,000 → total renovation ceiling of $150,000
- Home worth $750,000 → ceiling of $225,000
- Home worth $1,000,000 → ceiling of $300,000
The rule exists to protect you from the most expensive mistake in remodeling: putting more money into a house than the house and the neighborhood can ever give back. Every street has a ceiling. Buyers will pay up to it and not a dollar past it, no matter how beautiful the kitchen is. Spend inside the 30%, and your money has room to come back to you.
The room-by-room math
The 30% is your whole-house budget, not a single room. The rooms have their own proportions:
Kitchens: 5% to 15% of the home’s value.
On a $750,000 home, that is $37,500 to $112,500. Most of the kitchens I build land in the lower half of that band, which is exactly where they should be — a strong kitchen, done right, with money left over for the rest of the house.*
Bathrooms: 3% to 7% of the home’s value.
On that same $750,000 home, $22,500 to $52,500. Our bathrooms start at $9,999,* and most full renovations land comfortably inside the band.
Here is the part nobody tells homeowners: most people I meet are not overspending against this rule. They are underspending — patching, delaying, and living in a kitchen they dislike — because nobody ever showed them the math that says the project they want is well inside the safe zone.
When it makes sense to bend the rule
The 30% rule is a guardrail, not a law. Push past it when:
- You are staying put for 10 years or more. Time lets the market catch up, and you get a decade of living in the home you actually want.
- The work is safety or structure. A failing roof, bad wiring, or a slab problem is not an investment decision. It is a protect-the-house decision.
- You bought below market. A fixer-upper purchased under value hands you headroom the rule assumes you do not have.
- The renovation is cumulative. A $40,000 kitchen this year, a $25,000 bathroom next year, floors the year after — track the running total against your 30%, and staged work stays in proportion.
The Florida difference: some projects pay you back twice
The national version of this rule stops at resale value. South Florida adds a second return the rest of the country does not get.
Impact windows and doors are the clearest case. Per the 2025 Cost vs. Value Report, an entry door replacement returns about 188% of its cost nationally and a garage door about 194% — the two highest numbers on the entire list. In Florida, impact protection can also lower your homeowners insurance by up to $1,400 a year, because the carrier prices a hardened home differently. And programs like My Safe Florida Home have offered up to $10,000 toward exactly this kind of work. Resale return plus an annual insurance return is money coming back from two directions at once.
That is why the smartest South Florida renovation plans usually start with the envelope — roof, windows, doors — and then spend the kitchen and bathroom share of the 30% with confidence.
Run your own number
Take what your home is worth. Multiply by 0.30. That is your ceiling. Now multiply by 0.05 and 0.15 — that is your kitchen band. You will probably find the project you have been putting off fits the math better than you feared.
And when you want the number for your house instead of a rule of thumb: the measure is free. Text a photo of the room to (561) 462-9293 (call/text) with the word KITCHEN, BATHROOM, ROOF, or WINDOWS, and I will come out, measure it myself, and price it in person — inside your 30%, with financing available as low as 4.49% APR with approved credit and payments from $120/month on smaller jobs, so the right project does not have to wait on the perfect bank balance.
$1,000 off on projects of $10,000 or more.
— Joe Pichardo, Onel Construction LLC · CGC1511492 · onelconstruction.com
*Starting prices shown are for standard scopes; your written quote follows the free in-home measure and reflects your home’s actual condition, materials, and selections. Cost vs. Value figures are national averages from the 2025 Cost vs. Value Report (Remodeling Magazine) and are shared as planning context, not a promise of return on any specific home.
