Is Putting in a Swimming Pool Worth It?
It’s that time of year again where the weather’s getting nice and the pool parties are starting. We just went to our first one of the year and as always, my wife says, “Boy the kids would love a pool. We have the room. Would it be crazy if we did a pool?” In years past, I’ve immediately replied that she is in fact crazy. More recently though, I’ve started to at least give credence to the notion of either footing the bill for a new pool or perhaps even moving to a house that has a pool already. There are some key hurdles I continue to struggle with though and it’s clearly a mix of tangible costs and intangible costs and benefits.
What’s a Pool Cost?
While the estimates vary widely by what type of pool you want, what type of landscaping, patios, fences, and even what your locale is, the high level estimate I’ll go with for our situation would be $50,000. That sounds like a huge number, but when all is said and done, that’s about what we’d be looking at. If you’re going to go forward with a pool, you’re going to want a nice look to go with it, not to mention all the additional ongoing costs once it’s in, like an increase in homeowner’s insurance, a tax increase, maintenance expenses like opening/closing the pool, heating it if applicable, etc. For an additional data point, we have some friends in the area who got multiple quotes last year for a small pool given their yard size and they were coming in at around $45,000, so $50,000 for what we’d want is probably a decent bet. Of course you could argue that adding a swimming pool increases the resale value of your home, but that’s not what I want to focus on here.
What are the Benefits of a Pool?
The kids would obviously love it, that’s the only reason we’d ever even consider it. When I was a kid, my friend across the street had a pool and we were at his house constantly over the summers. I still remember playing Marco Polo and all kinds of other games in there for years. On one hand, that meant his mom had to worry about young kids in the pool, feeding us, washing towels, and everything else that goes along with it. But on the other hand, she knew where her kid was all the time. For people that like to entertain and have young kids of their own and friends/family with kids, it’s great. But then again, there are always fun summer activities you can do with your kids, even on a budget.
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