Which would be more cost effective: installing carpet or laminate flooring?

Question

I'm planning on buying a foreclosed house in Houston that has horrible carpets that will need to be replaced right away in the three bedrooms. I've tried to go to sites for pricing, but no one will without coming out to do an estimate. I just wanted a general idea. I know if I go with carpet, I would have to hire their people to install it, but if I go with laminate, I could probably hire some of my friends for cheaper who do house jobs.

So, what would be cheaper and more cost effective?

Answer 1

I actually recently went thru the same process while fixing up an old house in Virginia.  I went to Home Depot and found out that I could get carpet installed in the whole house cheaper than it would cost me to install the least expensive laminate flooring myself.  Good Luck

Answer 2

Depends on quality.  You could get top of the line carpeting and padding and spend more than a cheap laminate.  You could also buy expensive laminate and spend more than cheap apartment grade carpet.  So you first need to decide which *you* prefer and then price your options.  One thing I suggest though is don't skimp on the quality of your flooring. IT's the most used and abused part of your house so you want something that is going to stand up to that.

Answer 3

It depends on what your goal is for this house. If you plan on flipping it and making a few bucks, then I would go carpet. The reason being that a house with carpet in the bedrooms will sell ten times faster than one with laminate in it. If you are planning on living there yourself, then laminate is cheaper in the long run because you don't have to have it cleaned every six months.

All in all, they will cost about the same depending on where you live and what is available and how cheap you want to go. You can get cheap carpet for around $8 a sq. yard and add $1 to install. That's about $9 a yard. Your laminate would have to run less than $1 a square foot (installed) to beat that price. You could probably do it, but it depends on how tacky you want to go an, again, how fast you want to sell.

Answer 4

Home Depot or Lowes will carpet a whole house cheaper than you can put laminate in one room.I saw the advertisement just the other day.  8/2

Answer 5

I think you answered your own question. Laminate is cheaper then carpet usually but it is the cost of installing the product that is costly. i had the same problem with a rental home Lowes told me after all was measured that carpeting was cheaper to install.

Answer 6

I don't know how much they are. But if you get laminate you wont have to vacuum.

Answer 7

carpet..

Answer 8

it all depends on your personal preferences-

here's what you do take measurements of rooms for square footage-or make a map of rooms and write down measurements including closets nooks and crannies-go to carpet store-home depot, lowes or carpet one.Hand them the paper and go from there-they will line you out on prices on both carpet and laminate.

Dont worry about wrong measurements-when you make a deal they will come out and look house over remeasure before working-they want to make sure floor is good what they getting into plus any prep-work

I took all the carpet out of this house love the laminate-but dirt does show faster then carpet-makes you wonder how dirty carpet is