Selling the house

Which flooring adds the most resale value?

This is the one question on the site where the ranking is not ours. Buyers and appraisers have preferences that the material data cannot compute, and those preferences are stable enough to state plainly: wood floors are worth more than they cost, and everything else is worth roughly what it cost, or less. The table below ranks on longevity and buyer perception together, and the reasoning is spelled out under each pick.

Hardwood is the only floor that reliably returns more than it cost

The National Association of Realtors’ Remodeling Impact Report, compiled with the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, is the one recurring survey that asks agents and appraisers what a finished project recovers at sale. In the 2022 report, refinishing existing hardwood recovered an estimated 147 percent of its cost and installing new wood flooring recovered 118 percent — the two highest figures of any interior project surveyed. No other flooring is measured separately, which is itself the finding.

Beyond wood, the ordering below is longevity plus condition. A floor that will not need replacing in the buyer’s ownership is an asset; a floor that will is a line in their offer. New anything beats old anything, and a clean, neutral floor of any material outperforms a dated one of a better material.

Source: NAR & NARI, 2022 Remodeling Impact Report.

Ranked from the data

The four to look at first

Expected life and durability from the data, plus an editorial weighting for the materials buyers and appraisers are documented to prefer — real wood strongly, tile and stone moderately, waterproof plank slightly — and a small penalty for carpet, which listings routinely describe as a cost to remove.

1

Solid Hardwood

$9.00–$22.00 per sq ft installed

Expected life50–100 yrs
Durability
Water
Buyer perceptionPremium

The floor buyers ask for by name and appraisers credit. Refinishing an existing one is the single best-returning interior project in the NAR survey; installing new is the second. It costs more than any other common floor, and the return depends on it being in good condition at sale, so a floor that needs refinishing should be refinished before the listing photos, not discounted in the price.

2

Porcelain Tile

$8.00–$29.00 per sq ft installed

Expected life50–100 yrs
Durability
Water
Buyer perceptionStrong

The other floor that outlasts the mortgage. Buyers read large-format porcelain in kitchens and bathrooms as a finished, permanent house, and it never shows its age. It is expensive to install and expensive for the next owner to remove, which is a reason to keep the color neutral.

3

Natural Stone

$11.00–$50.00 per sq ft installed

Expected life50–100 yrs
Durability
Water
Buyer perceptionStrong

Natural stone reads as luxury in the listing and in the appraisal, and in the right house it is worth the price. It is the most expensive floor on the site and the one most dependent on taste — a dated stone is a removal cost, a timeless one is a selling point.

4

Engineered Hardwood

$9.00–$19.00 per sq ft installed

Expected life20–50 yrs
Durability
Water
Buyer perceptionPremium

Real wood on top, so it lists and appraises as hardwood, and it goes where solid cannot — over a slab, in a condo, in a room with radiant heat. A thick veneer that can be refinished once or twice holds more of its value than a thin one. If solid hardwood is out of budget or out of the question for the subfloor, this is the answer.

17 of 21 materials qualify

Every qualifying floor, in order

Same rule as the picks, run over everything that qualifies. Ties go to the cheaper material.

Poor
Fair
Moderate
Good
Excellent
Material Expected lifeDurabilityWaterBuyer perception Installed / sq ft
1Solid Hardwood 50–100 yrsPremium $9.00–$22.00
2Porcelain Tile 50–100 yrsStrong $8.00–$29.00
3Natural Stone 50–100 yrsStrong $11.00–$50.00
4Engineered Hardwood 20–50 yrsPremium $9.00–$19.00
5Luxury Vinyl Plank — SPC (Rigid Core) 15–25 yrsNeutral $4.00–$11.00
6Epoxy & Resinous Coatings 10–25 yrsNeutral $3.50–$18.00
7Ceramic Tile 25–50 yrsNeutral $6.00–$18.00
8Laminate 15–25 yrsNeutral $3.50–$11.00
9Luxury Vinyl Plank — WPC (Wood-Plastic Core) 15–25 yrsNeutral $5.00–$13.00
10Luxury Vinyl Tile (LVT) 15–25 yrsNeutral $5.50–$13.00
11Wool Carpet 20–40 yrsWeak $8.00–$22.00
12Sheet Vinyl 10–25 yrsNeutral $3.00–$9.00
13Luxury Vinyl Plank — Flexible (Glue-Down) 10–20 yrsNeutral $3.50–$9.00
14Nylon Carpet 10–20 yrsWeak $4.00–$10.00
15Triexta (PTT) Carpet 8–18 yrsWeak $4.00–$9.50
16Polyester / PET Carpet 5–12 yrsWeak $3.00–$7.50
17Olefin (Polypropylene) Carpet 5–10 yrsWeak $2.50–$6.50

Ruled out, and why

  • Carpet Tile (Modular) — sold and installed almost entirely in commercial buildings, so it is rated but not ranked for a home.
  • VCT — Vinyl Composition Tile — sold and installed almost entirely in commercial buildings, so it is rated but not ranked for a home.
  • Terrazzo — sold and installed almost entirely in commercial buildings, so it is rated but not ranked for a home.
  • Polished Concrete — sold and installed almost entirely in commercial buildings, so it is rated but not ranked for a home.
Bought by mistake

Five things people get wrong here

01

Replacing old hardwood with new vinyl before listing

It happens because the hardwood looks tired and the plank is cheap. The refinish would have returned more than it cost; the vinyl returns about what it cost and removes the one feature the listing could lead with. Refinish, or leave it for the buyer to refinish and price accordingly.

02

Carpet in the main living areas

Carpet in bedrooms is normal. Carpet in the living room, dining room and hallways is what buyers pull up first, and their offer prices in the cost of doing it. If the house is going to market, hard surface in the common areas is the single flooring change most agents ask for.

03

A bold or trendy tile

Tile is permanent and expensive to take out, which is a virtue when it is neutral and a liability when it is not. The patterned floor that photographs well this year is a removal quote in five.

04

Three different floors on one level

A transition strip every doorway makes a house feel smaller and pieced-together. One continuous floor across the main level is worth more than the sum of three better ones.

05

Over-improving for the street

Stone and premium hardwood return their cost in a house whose price supports it. In a starter home the same floors return a fraction, because the buyer at that price is comparing against vinyl plank and paying for square footage. Match the floor to the neighborhood, not the catalog.

Common questions

Flooring for resale — frequently asked

It is the only flooring with published evidence that it does. The NAR and NARI Remodeling Impact Report (2022) estimated that installing new wood flooring recovers 118 percent of its cost at sale and refinishing existing hardwood recovers 147 percent. Those are agent and appraiser estimates rather than measured sale prices, but they are consistent across editions of the report and no other flooring shows a return above cost.

Not any more. A new waterproof plank floor reads as clean and current to most buyers and is the expected floor in a mid-market listing. It does not add value the way real wood does, and an appraiser will not credit it as hardwood, so the one mistake is putting it down in place of hardwood that could have been refinished.

Worth replacing: worn carpet in the common areas, damaged or stained floors of any kind, and anything a buyer would call dated. Not worth replacing: a sound hardwood floor that needs a refinish (refinish it instead), a neutral tile in good condition, and a floor in a room the buyer will remodel anyway. Refinishing and deep cleaning return more per dollar than replacement in almost every case.

Split, and regional. Carpet in bedrooms is still the majority in colder climates and in family-oriented markets, hardwood throughout in warmer ones and in urban markets. Neither choice costs a sale; carpet in the living areas does.

Appraisers work from comparable sales, so they credit what the neighborhood has. Hardwood is the one material that appears as a named line item in most residential appraisal software and gets a positive adjustment; tile and stone in kitchens and baths are credited as part of the room’s quality grade; vinyl, laminate and carpet are graded as average unless they are in poor condition.

More than the material, in the buyer’s first reaction. Mid-tone, low-sheen, neutral floors photograph well and match anyone’s furniture. Very dark floors show dust and read smaller; very light ones show wear; red-toned and gray-washed finishes date a house to the decade they were popular in.

Find My Floor → Browse All 21 Materials → Solid hardwood →
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Also relevant: Solid hardwood · Engineered hardwood · Flooring costs