---
title: "The IKEA Effect: Why We Love What We’ve Assembled"
description: A shelf you have assembled yourself seems more valuable to you than an identical one bought from a store. Psychologists call this the IKEA effect, and it is responsible for more poor sales than one might expect.
image: https://bizpartnergroup.com/hubfs/efekt-ikea-skrutky.jpg
---

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[↵ Blog](https://blog.bizpartnergroup.com/?hsLang=en)

 20 October 2026

# The IKEA Effect: Why We Love What We’ve Assembled

You know the feeling. A box on the floor, instructions without a single word, a bag of screws with one always left over at the end, and an Allen key that starts to hurt your palm after an hour. And then it stands. An ordinary white shelf, one of hundreds of thousands across the country. Except this one is yours. And if you had to sell it, the few euros it would fetch would suddenly seem ridiculously low.

![Screws and nuts on a dark background](https://bizpartnergroup.com/hs-fs/hubfs/efekt-ikea-skrutky.jpg?width=1600&height=900&name=efekt-ikea-skrutky.jpg)

You are not alone in this, and it is not sentiment. It is a well-known error in judging value, and it is named after Swedish furniture.

## The box that grew more valuable in our own hands

Three researchers from American universities, Michael Norton, Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely, tested it in a rather ordinary way. One group of people was given a flat-packed IKEA storage box and asked to assemble it. A second group received the same box, already assembled. Both groups were then asked how much they would pay for it. Those who had built it themselves offered [63% more on average](https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/11-091.pdf). For the same box. The only difference was who had put it together.

The origami experiment was even more telling. Beginners folded a paper crane or frog and were then asked to bid on their creation. They valued their own work almost as highly as that of experienced origami masters. People who had not taken part in the folding would have paid barely a few cents for the same amateur frogs. A work of art to its maker, a crumpled piece of paper to everyone else.

**![Hands holding a paper origami crane](https://bizpartnergroup.com/hs-fs/hubfs/efekt-ikea-origami-zeriav.jpg?width=1600&height=900&name=efekt-ikea-origami-zeriav.jpg)**

One detail matters here. When people did not finish the product, the effect disappeared. The attachment, then, is not to the effort itself. It is to the finished thing that bears the mark of our hands. Marketers are said to have known this for a long time: when instant cake mixes arrived on the market in the 1950s, housewives were reluctant to use them at first because they made baking too easy. Manufacturers therefore put a fresh egg back into the recipe. The study's authors themselves acknowledge that there were several reasons for the eventual success. In their view, however, a bit of one's own work was probably one of the key ingredients.

## The flat you spent your weekends on

A shelf worth a few euros is harmless. It is worse when the same error repeats itself with the largest asset most of us will ever own.

American economists who compared owners' estimates with actual sale prices found that people [overestimate the value of their own home by five to ten percent on average](https://econ-papers.upf.edu/es/paper.php?id=1065). On a flat worth two hundred thousand, that is ten to twenty thousand euros that exist only in the seller's head. Part of this may be explained by ownership alone: in the famous mug experiment, [those who had just been given a mug asked for more than twice](https://doi.org/10.1086/261737) what others were willing to pay for it. Add your own work to ownership, and the value in the owner's eyes rises further still.

The authors of the IKEA study took the idea all the way to real estate themselves. In their view, an owner looks at the brick path he laid by hand and sees an improvement to the house. A buyer sees a crooked path. And the more of their personal taste owners put into a house, the worse it gets. Their example is a tiled backsplash behind the sink covered in Bible verses: to the owner it raises the price, while the buyer sees only one more item to tear out.

In Slovakia, we have our own version. A custom kitchen in a bold colour, a bathroom with four kinds of tiles, an attic that a father spent two years converting with his own hands. All of it honest work. But the buyer is not buying your weekends. They are buying a flat they are already furnishing in their own mind.

## Why a flipper must not love their kitchen

This is the difference between someone selling their home and someone who sells property professionally. A flipper, that is, an investor who buys a flat, renovates it and sells it on, renovates for someone they have never met. Neutral colours, durable materials, nothing the buyer would have to rip out. No personal favourites. Not because they lack taste, but because they know nobody will pay for it.

The same error is not limited to flats. An entrepreneur who spent twenty years building a company often values it higher at sale than an investor is willing to offer. The author of a business plan believes in it more than the bank does. Whoever built something sees years of work. Whoever buys it sees only the result and the question of how much more it will cost them.

This is not an argument against doing your own work. The IKEA effect is the reason people build houses, start companies and take care of the things that belong to them. Without it, we would never finish anything. You simply need to know when to stop being the builder and start being the seller.

## The builder and the valuer cannot be the same person

The research offers a simple, slightly uncomfortable lesson: you are a good builder and a poor judge of your own work. That is easy enough to live with once you know it. Before you set the price of your flat, ask someone who was not there during the renovation. Look at what similar flats have actually sold for, not what they are listed at. And with every investment in your own home, ask yourself whether you are making it for yourself or for a future buyer. Both are fine. They are just not the same thing.

At BizPartner Group, we have been buying, renovating and selling property since 2007, and we learned one thing quickly: [bricks hold a value that never goes out of fashion](https://bizpartnergroup.com/en/blog/the-devil-wears-prada-but-lives-in-brick-why-real-estate-is-not-in-fashion?hsLang=en), but tiles chosen to your taste are worth something only to you.

Your IKEA shelf will always be a little special to you. Keep it. Just do not include it in the price of your flat.

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