The resale value of an outdoor kitchen or outdoor living room is best in high-end suburban neighborhoods.

SUMMER UPDATES #2 AND #3: OUTDOOR KITCHEN AND OUTDOOR LIVING ROOM

Your ROI: Very good.

Why very good: Well, who wouldn't want a home with a barbecue pit or high-end grill (assuming you're going to leave it behind)? And the thought of departing your outdoor kitchen and walking a few feet to your outdoor living room so you can lounge on comfortable chairs and eat at a table in your backyard, using furniture far above a lawn chair and a rickety card table -- well, that's appealing, too.

As for costs, it really depends on your tastes and what your budget is. Spend a thousand, and you can probably get a reasonable grill and maybe a table and chairs with the umbrella over it. But if you're really going to do it right and go for a little luxury, it would be easy to spend closer to $10,000 and beyond.

DeSimone says this is a great investment "especially valuable in suburbs where people have larger backyards and pools. An outdoor kitchen or outdoor living room can serve as a buffer between the real indoors and the rest of the yard. If you have kids in the pool or guests enjoying sitting out in the yard, you don't have to keep going in and out to serve food or drinks."

But Lai warns, "There's the risk of over-improvement if your market doesn't support such high-end amenities." So if you're in a middle class neighborhood and you just don't see these outdoor kitchens and living rooms, go ahead and create them if they're important to you. Just know that the resale value is going to be much higher in the most elite neighborhoods where a buyer isn't going to think twice about adding another $5,000, $10,000, $20,000 or more to the cost of the house.

In fact, Lai says that in some of the million-dollar-plus neighborhoods, investing $100,000 in your backyard could yield a 200 percent profit "if you were starting with a functionally obsolete backyard."

What to focus on when you're building: You want your outdoor rooms to look inviting and hopefully in character with the neighborhood, not to mention the house. And while it's kind of obvious, any furniture should be as weather-resistant as possible.

NEXT: SUMMER UPDATE #4: All Decked Out >>