Every figure here is an asking price
Renovated or Original at Montebello: What Condition Is Worth Here
Updated September 2026
Bottom line: This market pays a large premium for finished condition at Montebello. Whether renovating before a sale pays is a separate question, and the remodel costs behind these homes are not public, so this page does not answer it.
Does a finished home at Montebello ask more than one in original condition?
Yes, and this building offers an unusually clean way to measure it, because homes here repeat: four to a floor, the same plans stacked up thirty floors. Two homes on the identical 5,528 square foot plan came to market seven months apart in different conditions, which is as close to a controlled comparison as a residential building ever produces.
Every price in this section is an asking price, and the section says so first because the distinction decides how much weight the comparison carries. Texas law keeps a sale price given voluntarily to an appraisal district confidential, and the local listing service releases closed prices only as ranges. What a home asked is exact; what it fetched is a band.
What did the same floor plan ask finished and stripped?
Home 132, finished and ready to move into, on the thirteenth floor, asked $497 per square foot and sold in November 2024. Home 262, taken back to the studs, on the twenty-sixth floor, asked $451 per square foot and sold in May 2025. Same plan, same floor area, 10.2 percent apart per square foot.
The reported closing band for the finished home sat one band above the band the stripped home closed in, which is as precisely as a closed price can be described in this state.
Read the floors before you read the percentage, because they run the wrong way. The finished home was thirteen floors lower in a building whose own developer priced height steeply: the same plan asked 66 percent more on the twenty-eighth floor than on the second when the tower first sold. So the finished home overcame a substantial height disadvantage to ask more and close higher. The premium for condition alone is larger than the 10.2 percent the two asking prices show.
| Home | Floor | Condition | Square feet | Asking price per sq ft | Sold |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 132 | 13 | Finished, ready to move into | 5,528 | $497 | November 2024 |
| 262 | 26 | Taken back to the studs | 5,528 | $451 | May 2025 |
What happened when one home was remodelled and put back on the market?
Home 244, 4,885 square feet on the twenty-fourth floor, asked $1,999,999 in December 2022, which is $409 per square foot. It was gutted and remodelled. It came back in July 2024 asking $3,095,000, or $634 per square foot, and it sold in five days.
That is a 54.8 percent increase in asking price on the same home in the same building, and a marketing period of five days in a tower where one home sat 169 days last year. Both halves of that are worth an owner's attention, because speed has a cost of its own: every month a home sits costs its owner assessments and property tax.
The one thing this comparison does not carry is what the work cost, and that omission is the whole reason the next section exists.
| Listed | Condition | Square feet | Asking price | Asking price per sq ft | Days on market |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 2022 | Original | 4,885 | $1,999,999 | $409 | not published |
| July 2024 | Gut remodel | 4,885 | $3,095,000 | $634 | 5 |
Does this mean renovating a home at Montebello before selling pays?
This page cannot say, and any page that tells you it does is guessing. What the two comparisons prove is that the market here pays a large gross premium for finished condition. What they leave out is the cost of getting there, and the cost is the entire question.
Nobody publishes what home 244's remodel cost. Its owner knows, the contractor knows, and neither figure is a public record. A gut remodel of nearly 5,000 square feet at this level of finish is a substantial construction project, and it is entirely possible for that project to cost more than the difference between the two asking prices. Until an owner has a real bid in hand, the gross premium on this page is not a return.
So treat these figures as evidence about the market rather than as a business case. They tell you a finished home competes from a stronger position and can move quickly. They do not tell you what you would net.
What should an owner do with this before listing?
Get a bid before you get an opinion. The comparison that decides this for your home is your own contractor's number against the gross premium the two homes above suggest for your plan and your floor, and only one of those two figures is missing.
Then weigh the middle option, which neither comparison on this page tests: making a home presentable without gutting it. Nothing here measures what paint, floors, fixtures and a deep clean are worth at Montebello, because no pair of homes in the record isolates it.
And document whatever has already been done. A home that has had its systems or its kitchen replaced is carrying value that a listing cannot charge for unless somebody can show when the work happened and what it covered.
What can this page not tell you?
It cannot tell you what any of these homes sold for. Every figure above is an asking price, and Texas publishes closed prices only as ranges.
It cannot tell you what any renovation at Montebello cost. No figure for construction cost appears on this page because none is published, and this site does not estimate one.
It cannot separate condition from floor, exposure or timing with only two comparisons. Two pairs of homes are evidence, and they are not a study.
It cannot tell you the width of the reported price bands, so it cannot turn the phrase about one band above into a number of dollars.
And it cannot tell you what a lighter refresh is worth here, because no pair in the record isolates that from a full remodel.
Questions & answers
Montebello questions, answered
Do renovated homes at Montebello sell for more?
They ask more, by a wide margin. Two homes on the identical 5,528 square foot plan came to market seven months apart: the finished one asked $497 per square foot and the one taken back to the studs asked $451, a difference of 10.2 percent on the same floor plan.
The real premium is larger than that, because the two homes were not on comparable floors. The finished home sat thirteen floors below the stripped one, in a building whose developer priced height steeply from the first day: the same plan asked 66 percent more on the twenty-eighth floor than on the second when the tower first sold. A home overcoming thirteen floors of height disadvantage to ask more, and to close in a higher reported band, has been paid for its condition and then some. What none of this establishes is whether the work was worth doing, and the guide to selling at Montebello explains why an owner needs a contractor's bid before that question has an answer.
At Montebello, does the floor matter more than the condition of the home?
Both matter and they can offset each other. Height was priced steeply here from the beginning: the developer asked 66 percent more for the same 3,500 square foot plan on the twenty-eighth floor than on the second in 2001. Condition has since proved strong enough to overcome thirteen floors of that.
For an owner that has a practical consequence. If your home is high in the building and in original condition, your competition is a finished home lower down, and the comparison a buyer makes is not the one a price per square foot table suggests. If your home is low and finished, you are better placed than the floor alone implies. Either way the comparable set that matters is small: four homes to a floor, 98 in the tower and a handful of sales a year, so the honest comparison is two or three specific homes. The figures behind that range are on the sales history page.
Has a home at Montebello been remodelled and resold at a higher price?
Yes. Home 244, 4,885 square feet on the twenty-fourth floor, asked $1,999,999 in December 2022, which is $409 per square foot. It was gutted and remodelled, came back to the market in July 2024 asking $3,095,000, or $634 per square foot, and it sold in five days.
That is a 54.8 percent increase in asking price on the same home, and five days on the market in a building that produced a 169 day marketing period last year. Both are notable and neither proves the remodel was profitable, because what the work cost has never been published. A construction budget is a private document, and this site does not estimate one. Read the pair as evidence that a finished home competes from a stronger position and can move fast, rather than as a return on an investment. What a home costs its owner every month while a project like that runs is on the monthly assessment page.
Should I renovate my home at Montebello before I sell it?
Get a builder's bid before you decide, because the missing number is the cost rather than the premium. The market here clearly pays more for finished condition. What a gut remodel of a home this size costs is a private figure, and it can be large enough to consume the whole difference.
The arithmetic an owner needs has two sides and this site can only supply one of them. The premium side comes from the two comparisons in the record: about 10 percent per square foot between a finished home and a stripped one on the same plan, and a 54.8 percent lift in asking price on a home that was gutted between listings. The cost side comes from your own contractor. Ask for a bid on the scope you are actually considering, then compare it against the premium for your plan and your floor. Also consider the middle option, which no pair of homes in this building isolates: presenting the home well without gutting it. A free home valuation is a sensible first step.
Can I sell a home at Montebello in original condition?
Yes, and one recently did. Home 262, taken back to the studs on the twenty-sixth floor, sold in May 2025 asking $451 per square foot. Buyers for unfinished homes here exist, and they price the work they are taking on into what they offer.
What selling in original condition costs you is the difference the market pays for finished condition, which the record puts at more than 10 percent per square foot once the floor difference between the two comparison homes is allowed for. What it saves you is a construction project, its budget and its calendar, during which the home carries assessments and property tax every month. Neither route is wrong and the choice depends on figures particular to your home: its plan, its floor, its present condition and what a builder quotes. What each month of waiting costs while a project runs is set out on the monthly assessment page.