About The Group Behind This Digest
A guide's judgement is only worth as much as the reader can see of how it was reached. This page sets out how we work, what we read, and where our method stops.
A method a reader can check, not a track record
We are an independent guide to getting a New Hampshire home ready for a sale, and to what a buyer or new owner should check after one. We do not inspect houses, run crews or hold listings, and nothing on this site is a quote. The subject is the work done on a house before a sale or after an inspection: painting, kitchens, bathrooms, decks and flooring.
Our judgement rests on three things a reader can check for themselves: what the rules require, what the published cost surveys measure, and what the trade bodies say about the work. Every figure names its source where it appears, and a regional average is labelled as one in the same sentence.
New Hampshire had no state licensing board for home contractors in 2016, and in a New Hampshire Public Radio interview a senior assistant attorney general said that attempts to create one had failed in the legislature. We have not confirmed whether that has changed, so a reader has to check a painter or remodeler another way.
The bigger remodel is not the safer sale
The idea a seller often starts with
A common starting point is that a full remodel is the safe move before a listing, because a bigger job looks like more value on paper. That idea is worth testing against the figures before any money is committed.
What the New England figures record
The 2025 Cost vs Value report for New England puts a midrange minor kitchen remodel at an average job cost of $28,936, with 134.3% of that cost recovered at resale. A midrange major kitchen remodel averaged $84,000 and recovered 50.4%. A midrange bath remodel recovered 90.5% of an average $27,559, and an upscale bath recovered 45.0% of $83,877. In both pairs the costlier job recovered the smaller share, so on these numbers the larger project gets less of its cost back.
Where the figures stop
These are regional averages from a report that does not define the scope of each project, and they are not quotes for a New Hampshire house. Resale recovery is what the report measured at sale, not a price a seller will receive. A survey figure tells a reader where to start, and a written quote tells them what a particular house needs.
A guide that sorts jobs rather than pricing them
A reader looking into a pre-sale job often finds price lists or sales pitches, and neither says which jobs their own house needs. The sorting helper on the Local Programs page asks what the reader already knows about the house, then sorts each job into one of three groups, with the reasoning printed beside it so the reader can disagree.
It does not value a house, quote a price or name a business.
Reading a contractor's advice on hiring beside a written quote
The video below is a bathroom remodeler's own tips on hiring one. It is one contractor's view, so set it beside the questions on the Membership page rather than treating it as a full checklist. We describe it from its title and have not checked every claim it makes.