Do Pools Add Home Value? The Honest Math

A pool is a good buy if you plan to swim in it for a decade. It is a weak buy if you are building it to make your house worth more. The National Association of Realtors' 2023 Remodeling Impact Report puts numbers on both sides: an in-ground pool costs an estimated $90,000 and recovers about $50,000 at resale, a 56% cost recovery, while its Joy Score sits at a perfect 10 out of 10, as high as any home improvement measured. That split, high joy, partial payback, is the whole point of this page.

The NAR numbers, plain

That data comes from NAR's 2023 Remodeling Impact Report: Outdoor Features, produced with the National Association of Landscape Professionals, the most recent edition covering pools; no 2024 or 2025 refresh has been published. Compare the pool's 56% recovery to other outdoor projects in the same report: a new patio recovers 95%, a wood deck 89%, and landscape maintenance 104%, meaning realtors estimate it can add slightly more value than it costs. A pool's 56% ties a fire feature for the lowest recovery rate of any outdoor project NAR tracked, well below patios, decks, and basic landscaping, while carrying the highest possible joy rating. Realtors are saying, through their own survey data, that a pool is worth building for how much you will enjoy it, not for what it returns in a sale.

Run any project, pool included, through the project ROI checker to see this same cost-versus-recovery math against other home improvements, and to plug in your own contractor quote instead of the national average.

What installation and upkeep actually cost

The $90,000 NAR estimate is a national average tied to its own survey year. Separate industry cost guides, triangulated across roughly eight sources including This Old House, Angi, HomeGuide, and Today's Homeowner, put national in-ground pool installation at $44,499 to $87,349, with a midpoint near $65,900 to $66,000, and a full range of $35,000 to $120,000. Treat this as a medium-confidence, reported range, since it comes from aggregator triangulation rather than one fetched primary source. Material changes the number: vinyl liner runs $25,000 to $65,000 installed, fiberglass $45,000 to $100,000, and concrete or gunite $50,000 to $120,000, or $90 to $250 per square foot. These figures typically exclude excavation, permits, fencing, and decking, add-ons industry sources say often get left off the number a homeowner sees first.

The upkeep bill does not stop once the pool is built, and this is the part pool marketing tends to leave out. Reported figures, again triangulated across sources including Angi, HomeGuide, and PoolDial, put chemicals and supplies alone around $900 a year as a baseline, DIY maintenance at $1,200 to $3,600 a year, and full professional service at $2,400 to $5,000 a year, at a per-visit rate averaging $236 and ranging $55 to $780. Most owners land between $1,200 and $4,000-plus a year, depending on pool size, climate, and how much work they do themselves. Run the professional-service midpoint, about $3,700 a year, across a decade and maintenance alone adds roughly $37,000, on top of installation and the roughly 44% of that cost NAR data shows does not come back at resale. Warm-season states like Texas, Florida, California, and Arizona run higher, since the swim season lasts longer and UV exposure degrades chemicals faster.

The insurance fine print

A pool changes your liability exposure, and the insurance industry says so directly. The Insurance Information Institute recommends pool owners raise the liability portion of their homeowners policy to at least $300,000 to $500,000, more if their assets warrant it, since a standard policy commonly carries only $100,000 in personal liability coverage, and recommends an umbrella policy layered on top for additional protection.

The reasoning rests on a legal doctrine called "attractive nuisance": a pool can draw people onto your property, including trespassing children, and an owner can be held liable for injuries to them even without having given permission to be there. The Institute cites CDC data showing an average of more than 3,500 fatal unintentional drownings in the U.S. each year as context, not as a claims-cost figure. Coverage commonly requires a fence with self-closing, self-latching gates on every side of the pool, with height and latch standards set by local municipalities, not by the Institute. The Institute's page does not publish a dollar figure for how much a premium rises once a pool is added.

Does a pool actually attract buyers?

Real estate commentary here is more conditional than pool marketing suggests. NAR, citing a 2025 realtor.com study, reports homes with pools sold at a 54% premium, a $599,000 median sale price versus $389,000 for homes without one, and that about a quarter of listed homes in spring 2026 included a pool, a record high per realtor.com. Realtor.com analyst Hannah Jones said pandemic-era pool-premium demand peaked in January 2022 and that although price premiums have normalized since, a pool still drives a premium and remains popular in listings.

That 54% figure is a raw comparison of sold prices, not a controlled measurement of what a pool itself adds. Homes with pools tend to be larger and pricier to begin with, so the premium reflects the kind of house that gets a pool as much as the pool itself. A separate, lower-confidence figure attributed to HouseLogic, via secondary aggregation rather than a directly fetched page, puts a pool's actual value-add closer to 1% to 7% of home value depending on location and climate, a narrower number than the 54% figure. The two measure different things and should not be conflated.

Real estate commentary also notes a pool can narrow buyer interest rather than expand it, since some buyers see maintenance and liability as a burden rather than a luxury. How much a pool helps or hurts depends on climate, whether comparable homes nearby also have pools, and how much yard the pool takes up. Check the project ROI checker against other outdoor and interior projects to see where a limited budget does the most good at resale.

The bottom line

Buy a pool because you want to swim in it, host in it, and watch your kids grow up jumping into it. Do not buy it because you think it will pay for itself when you sell the house. NAR's own data shows a 56% cost recovery, tied for the lowest of any outdoor project it tracks, against a perfect Joy Score. Installation runs tens of thousands of dollars, upkeep adds thousands more every year you own it, and the liability exposure is real enough that insurers recommend raising coverage limits specifically for it. None of that makes a pool a bad purchase. It makes it a purchase to be honest with yourself about, the way you would be honest about a boat or a home theater: a good buy for what it gives you to live with, not a project you will get your money back on.

FAQ

Does removing a pool help resale value?

None of the sources for this page publish a figure for what removing a pool does to resale value or cost. The data does show a pool's own low recovery rate, 56%, alongside commentary that a pool can narrow buyer interest for buyers who see it as a burden rather than a feature. Whether removal helps in a given market depends on local buyer preferences and climate, factors this research did not find quantified in a citable source.

How does a pool change my insurance?

The Insurance Information Institute treats a pool as an "attractive nuisance" and recommends raising liability coverage to at least $300,000 to $500,000, plus an umbrella policy, since standard policies commonly cap personal liability at $100,000. See the insurance section above for the fence and gate requirements insurers commonly attach to coverage.

Does climate change whether a pool is worth it?

Climate affects the ongoing cost side more clearly than the resale side in the sourced data. Annual maintenance runs higher in warm-season states like Texas, Florida, California, and Arizona, where a longer swim season and stronger UV exposure degrade pool chemicals faster. On the buyer-demand side, commentary notes a pool's value impact depends heavily on climate and local norms: a pool in a hot climate where most comparable homes already have one behaves differently than one in a market where it is unusual, though the sources here do not break that difference into numbers by region.

Yard & Board guides and tools give planning estimates, not professional advice. Building codes and site conditions vary — confirm structural work with your local permit office or a licensed contractor.