The lack of inspection should have been their first red flag, says seasoned agent Mary Stewart<\/a>, who works with 82% more single-family homes than the average agent in Sugar Land, Texas<\/a>. According to Stewart, the \u201cNo. 1 thing when you\u2019re buying the house is to have a good inspector so you don\u2019t <\/i>have a money pit\u201d.<\/p>\n You, dear reader, will be shocked to know that things start to go wrong for the heroes almost immediately.<\/p>\n A grand staircase falls to pieces, electrical fires in the kitchen diminish (not to mention singe) Walter\u2019s youthful glow, and the water in the bathtub comes out as what can only be described as sewage jello.<\/p>\n The list of wrongs (and how long it takes to right them) consume the rest of the movie. The Money Pit<\/i> is a delightful and dated farce (watching for the satin pajamas and overstuffed interiors alone is a treat!) but as real estate enthusiasts, we wanted to know \u2014 how much would fixing the money pit cost in today\u2019s dollars?<\/p>\n To answer this question we dove deep to look at exactly what went wrong and the national market value of fixing those issues today. What we came away with was definitely over what the movie\u2019s protagonists initially paid for the house, but less than what the real-life owners ended up forking out in their own remodel. More on that below.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s start with some background on the house itself.<\/p>\n The home where The Money Pit<\/i> was filmed was first built in 1898 and sits majestically at 199 Feeks Lane in Lattingtown \u2014an incorporated village located in the Town of Oyster Bay, which is itself in Nassau County, New York. It was owned, at the time of filming, by Eric Ridder \u2014 a professional sailor who came home with gold at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki.<\/p>\n In 2002, the home was purchased by Rich and Christina Makowsky to the tune of $2.125 million \u2014 which translates to a little over $3 million today. The Makowskys then spent a whopping $5.9 million on a top-to-tail renovation that included rewiring, replumbing, and the addition of a warmed salt water pool. With a renovation that cost more than twice the buying price, it was probably not a renovation<\/a> made with a re-sell profit in mind.<\/p>\n Fully renovated and refurbished, the couple put the house back on the market for $12.5 million in 2014. The price tag didn\u2019t match the market<\/a>, however, and the listing went through multiple price drops until it finally sold in 2019 for $3.5 million (reportedly with an annual land tax of $88,448 a year).<\/p>\n Accounting for inflation between 2002 and 2019, the home lost the Makowskys just under $7 million. Turns out the real life Money Pit<\/i> home lived up to its fictional hype.<\/p>\n Assuming the home had never been renovated, what would our fearless, fictional heroes\u2019 renovation bill look like in today’s market? To find out, we took stock of every collapsing detail of the home, working step-by-step through the movie, and pricing out each comedic catastrophe for your viewing and edifying pleasure.<\/p>\n Just to start things off nice and slow, the doorbell on the house almost immediately short-wires and gives Walter a nice little shock. Nothing like what\u2019s in store later on, of course, but plenty obnoxious.<\/p>\n While homeowners might be tempted to replace a doorbell themselves, working with a professional who can troubleshoot the issue and knows how to wire according to electrical codes is probably the safest bet. Walter tries and fails to rewire the bell himself, ultimately handing the job over to the dubious renovation pros of the movie.<\/p>\n Replacing and rewiring a doorbell in a home this old probably runs on the higher end of the spectrum costing in today’s market around $250<\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n The front door of your home is sometimes referred to as \u201cthe portal to the soul of your house,\u201d which assumes that if you do not have a front door, it is impossible to access the soul of your home (could a first-floor window serve as \u201cthe doggie door to the soul of your house\u201d in a pinch? Inquiring minds need to know!).<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the \u201cportal to the soul\u201d of Walter and Anna\u2019s house falls off almost immediately. To fix a minor issue<\/a> with your door \u2014 whether in the interest of perfectionism or curb appeal \u2014 will cost, on average, $220. To entirely replace a front door would likely run somewhere around $992, which is the median between the low end of the spectrum ($475) and the high end ($1,534).<\/p>\n Unfortunately, when Walter tries to close his broken front door, the motion causes the door frame to fall off as well. Replacing an exterior door frame<\/a>, with a custom-built wooden frame (the downsides of owning a turn-of-the-century estate) would likely be an additional $300 \u2014or $7 to $20 dollars per linear foot, depending on size and materials of the frame (hint: it\u2019s a big door).<\/p>\n A new door and custom-built frame would likely take a $1,300<\/b> ding out of the renovation budget.<\/p>\n Anna attempts to take a nice warm bath at the end of a hard day’s renovation, and out of the tap emerges what looks, and probably smells, like sewage jello. The Money Pit<\/i> home in Long Island boasts eight full bathrooms and two half-bathrooms. Since our heroes resort (for the rest of the movie) to carrying water buckets precariously up ladders, we can assume that none <\/i>of those other bathrooms had plumbing better than the one we are shown.<\/p>\n Replumbing a home can cost between $1,500 and $15,000<\/a>, and the price depends on plenty of different factors. However, even the upper echelon of that estimate likely doesn\u2019t account for replumbing an eight-plus-bedroom estate.<\/p>\n Replacing 1,000 square feet of piping will cost between $5,000 and $10,000, so it is reasonable to assume that a 14,000-square-foot job, even if some of the pipes can stay (luckily, our heroes have water in the kitchen throughout construction), would run at least $100,000<\/b>.<\/p>\n A raccoon is living in the dumbwaiter, because of course it is. Anna discovers it, and the racoon immediately makes a new home out of her face.<\/p>\n Let us pause here to give The Money Pit<\/i> writers a bit of praise for only traumatizing Anna with one raccoon. Not a whole family living in the roof, or a whole graveyard of racoons not-living in the walls.<\/p>\n The cost for trapping and relocating a single raccoon is between $175 and $300<\/a>.<\/p>\n To clean up after a racoon \u2014 dried stools can contain hookworm, a parasite which can become airborne and infect humans \u2014 would cost around $500.<\/p>\n Evicting, relocating and cleaning up after a single racoon would, in today’s market, cost around $750<\/b>.<\/p>\n Note: If you\u2019re feeling guilty about kicking out your mustelid tenant, know that modern raccoon traps are baited with bread or marshmallows. So at least the previous resident of your home will have a nice snack before eviction.<\/p>\n At the same moment that the dumbwaiter raccoon lodges itself on Anna\u2019s face (with no apparent or lasting damage to her, by the way), Walter sprints up the grand staircase, causing it to entirely fall apart.<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, replacing main staircases are somewhat more expensive than replacing attic or basement stairs: main stairs start around $2,400<\/a>, while attic stairs start much lower at around $500. While the high end of a standard main staircase replacement is around $4,000, custom jobs like the grand, curved wooden staircase in The Money Pit<\/i> home will likely bump the price up closer to $10,000<\/b>.<\/p>\n So many things go wrong in this home’s poor kitchen.<\/p>\n First, the wiring. Sparks fly at Walter after he dares to flip on a light \u2014 and he\u2019s soon dealing with a full-blown electrical fire. This fire, in turn, manages to explode the gas range and dramatically expel a roasting chicken out the kitchen window.<\/p>\n Kitchen remodeling<\/a> costs depend, of course, on the ambitions of the remodel itself. A low-end remodel can cost as little as $13,000 if you pick the right contractor<\/a> and keep your list of items to a minimum. However, the higher end of the spectrum taps in between $50,000 and\u00a0 $100,000.<\/p>\n While some dollars can be saved by keeping the existing counters, floors, and cabinets \u2014a new stove, plus redoing the electrical and gas in the kitchen, will probably cost around $60,000<\/b>. Expensive, but can you really put a price on a chicken you wanted to eat not<\/i> being forcibly propelled through your kitchen window?<\/p>\n In one of the more memorable scenes of the movie, Walter and Anna\u2019s claw foot tub falls through the floor of their second-story bathroom (it\u2019s a rare opportunity to watch Tom Hanks lose his mind).<\/p>\n For this estimate, we\u2019re looking not only at the price of buying an antique clawfoot tub, but also the price of a bathroom remodel (holes in floors don\u2019t do wonders for either privacy or structural integrity).<\/p>\n The national average cost of a 100-square-foot bathroom remodel<\/a> is $20,000, which includes flooring, demolition, and plumbing. The original tub did not survive its inaugural flight so tack on the average cost of an antique clawfoot tub ($2,850), and we\u2019re looking at around $22,850 for this bathroom alone. Assuming all eight full bathrooms need a remodel, that estimate skyrockets to around $183,000<\/b>.<\/p>\n After the first day of demolition (and minus any permits), Walter returns home to piles of rubble and plenty of haphazard holes torn in his beautiful wooden clapboard siding. It is clear that all, or at least a significant amount, of the home\u2019s siding needs to be redone.<\/p>\n If you are replacing the wooden clapboard siding on a 2,000-square-foot home you can expect to pay $16,000<\/a> for the quality and pleasure of this fancy clapboard facade. Assuming the whole facade of the 14,000-square-foot home in The Money Pit<\/i> needs to be replaced (and judging from the first day of construction holes, it does), then you\u2019d be looking at around $112,000<\/b> in today’s market. Yikes!<\/p>\n When Walter innocently places a log on the fire to ward off the chill in their main bedroom, the ill-fated log tips the balance and sends the whole chimney cascading down its own chute.<\/p>\n A new chimney is in order, but at what cost? The chimney in this home is clearly brick, and the bedroom is on the second of two floors, making it a two-story chimney. A standard chimney replacement will cost between $4,000 and $15,000<\/a> dollars to rebuild entirely. The price increases in tandem with the extent of the damage to the existing chimney, such as a leaning stack, mortar deterioration, and whether or not the hearth remains intact.<\/p>\n In Walter\u2019s case, everything, including the hearth, has turned into more or less construction rubble in an instant, so we\u2019d guess that this chimney rebuild is closer to the tune of $15,000<\/b>. A real cherry on top of the pie, or whatever it is they said in the \u201980s.<\/p>\n The chimney in shambles Walter and Anna climb into bed, desperate for a respite from waking life. Unfortunately thunder rumbles in the background and the roof over their heads springs a preposterous number of leaks.<\/p>\n Even more unfortunately, roofs that suit the colonial style of a home from 1898 don\u2019t come cheap.<\/p>\n A simple roof repair job<\/a> can cost up to $1,100. Judging by the amount of holes in The Money Pit<\/i> roof our heroes are in for a much more expensive fix. While we don\u2019t get close enough in the movie to tell exactly what type shingle we\u2019re working with, we\u2019d bet that roof professionals today would go with architectural shingles<\/a> to fix this roof.<\/p>\n Architectural shingles are a higher grade of asphalt shingles and can be designed to mimic older shingle styles, like wood shake. The good news? Buying high-quality shingles and maintaining them correctly mean architectural shingles can last up to two to three times as long as standard asphalt shingles.<\/p>\n The bad news is the cost increases along with the longevity, running between $110 and $150 a square foot for a single-story house.<\/p>\n Not knowing how many leaks are present or how large the roof of The Money Pit<\/i> house is makes it hard to hazard a guess on the cost of this fix. But generously speaking, if only 500 square feet of roof had to be patched on this 14,000-square-foot home, modern renovators would still be looking at about $75,000<\/b>.<\/p>\n Given the cascading, crumbling nature of the home, it seems like nothing else could possibly go wrong. However, there is one bullet that Walter and Anna manage to dodge: Their foundation is solid.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/money-pit-how-much-it-cost-door-666x381.jpg\")
<\/a>Unpacking the house<\/h2>\n
Bad doorbell<\/h3>\n
Broken door<\/h3>\n
Bad pipes<\/h3>\n
Raccoon re-homing<\/h3>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/money-pit-how-much-it-cost-stairs-666x381.png\")
<\/a>Entire staircase falls apart<\/h3>\n
Kitchen remodel<\/h3>\n
New tub, new everything<\/h3>\n
Clapboard clapback<\/h3>\n
Chimney<\/h3>\n
Is it a showerhead or is it a roof?<\/h3>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/money-pit-how-much-it-cost-bones-666x381.jpg\")
<\/a>Good bones and a happy ending<\/h2>\n