A remodel is part home, part investment — and not every dollar comes back the same. Before you decide how far to take a kitchen or bath, it helps to know what each kind of project actually recoups at resale here in Pennsylvania. The short version: targeted, midrange work beats luxury gut jobs on return almost every time.
The best return rarely comes from spending the most. It comes from spending it in the right places.
The numbers for our region
Pennsylvania sits in the Middle Atlantic region of the 2025 Cost vs. Value Report (JLC / Zonda), the annual study that models what a project adds to a home's sale price. Category matters enormously here — "major" and "minor," "midrange" and "upscale" are four different projects, and the figures below are the Middle Atlantic ones, not the national averages:
- Minor kitchen remodel, midrange: about 107% in the Middle Atlantic — the only project on the list that returns more than it costs. Read the fine print, though: the study defines this one as keeping the cabinet boxes and replacing the fronts, on the existing footprint.
- Major kitchen remodel, midrange: about 49%. New semi-custom cabinetry, an island, new flooring and a corrected layout.
- Major kitchen remodel, upscale: about 34.9%. A full gut is a lifestyle decision, not a payback one. (The ~51% figure quoted around the internet is the national midrange number for a different project — worth knowing before someone quotes it at you.)
- Bathroom remodel, midrange: about 80% — its strongest showing in nearly two decades.
- Bathroom remodel, upscale: around 42%.
- Bathroom remodel, universal design: about 64% — a curbless shower, a comfort-height toilet and grab-bar blocking return better than an upscale bath does, which is worth knowing if you are weighing aging-in-place work against a luxury remodel.
The pattern jumps off the page: the midrange version of a project consistently returns far more, as a percentage, than the luxury version.
One piece of honesty that number demands: we don't do the 107% project. Keeping the old boxes and swapping the doors is refacing, and we build new cabinetry instead — because the boxes, their sizes and the layout are usually the reason the kitchen stopped working, and a new front doesn't fix any of that. Why we build new rather than reface. If a fronts-only refresh is genuinely what you want, the report says it is the best money in the study, and you should have someone do it — just not us. Our closest equivalent is the midrange major remodel at roughly 49%, and the reason to do that one is that you get a kitchen that works, with about half the money back at sale.
Two honest caveats. These are modelled resale estimates from a national study — an appraiser's judgement of what the work adds at sale, not a guarantee of what any individual house will fetch. And they are resale benchmarks, not our pricing: what a project costs to build in Allentown or Bethlehem is a separate question, answered in our kitchen and bathroom cost guides.
Why midrange wins
It's about the buyer pool. A clean, well-built kitchen with durable, classic finishes appeals to almost everyone who walks through. A $150,000 designer kitchen with bold, specific taste appeals to a much smaller slice — and the next owner won't pay a premium for choices they'd have made differently. Quality and timelessness travel; extravagance and personality don't.
Kitchens: where the return lives
The high-ROI kitchen updates the things buyers see and use — cabinetry, countertops, hardware, lighting and appliances — without the cost (and taste risk) of moving walls and relocating plumbing. If you're choosing surfaces with resale in mind, our quartz vs. granite vs. quartzite guide and the kitchen cost guide are the place to start.
Bathrooms: the keep-one-tub rule
Bathrooms reward the same discipline. A midrange bath recoups around 80% in the Middle Atlantic. The one rule worth following: keep at least one bathtub in the home for the buyers who expect it, then upgrade another bath to a walk-in shower. We unpack this fully in walk-in shower vs. bathtub value.
The value the report doesn't measure
Resale percentages assume you're selling soon. Most people aren't. The years of actually enjoying a kitchen that works, or a bathroom that's safe to age in, are real value too — they just don't show up in an appraisal. If you're staying put, weigh daily life alongside resale, and don't let an ROI chart talk you out of the thing you'll use every morning.
How to maximize what you recoup
- Don't over-improve for the block — match your neighborhood's ceiling, don't blow past it.
- Choose durable, neutral, classic finishes that read well to any buyer.
- Fix function, not just looks — a better layout and quality construction outlast a trend.
- Keep one tub, and aim midrange unless you're building for the long haul.
- Hire a registered, insured contractor so the work is permitted and holds up at inspection and resale (see how to choose a contractor).
Plan it with real numbers
Resale value is always market-specific, so treat these figures as direction, not a promise. For a real ballpark on your project, try our cost calculator, or book a free in-home estimate and we'll help you spend where it pays back.