whether to remodel or not
 

we live in a not so expensive house, and figure we could be moving out in less than a year.

we have really crappy outdated bathrooms. in fact, most of the house could use some updating.

wise to put any money into remodeling now? i figure we wouldn't recoup our investment, what do you think?

If it would increase the value of the home when you sell it, it could be worth it. If not, don't do it.

The other thing to consider is sellability of the home. Particularly in today's market. Even if it's a breaken or even a small loss, it might be worth doing just to prevent it taking forever to sell the house.

OTOH, your house sounds like it would make an ideal rental. So you might consider not keeping it as a rental and/or selling it to an investor as a rental. If you're interested in the latter, keep me in mind.

Probably would need to sell it for the downpayment on next house.

Factor in the the fact that you are going to live there a while too. Do basic but not too expensive things. You're cheap, do the work yourself (I am the same way) as this saves a LOT of money. e.g. I needed some new flooring, bids ranged from 15-19k. I did it myself and paid 5k for the product.

In terms of selling, the most important things that a potential buyer looks at are the bathrooms and the kitchen. I don't know your Dallas market nor have I seen your house, but updating a bathroom (not going overboard but making it updated and look nice) will have a positive result on selling your house. You can do a decent bathroom remodel in the $2-5,000 range depending on how much of the work you do yourself.

Like I said, a lot of it depends on how much of the work that you are doing. It also depends on how much you are getting rid of. If you are keeping the tub and/or shower fixtures, then you will add a lot of the cost.

Tiling--it depends on how much you are re-tiling. If you are doing the floor and up along the walls (including in the shower area), you will be looking at $400-700. That does not include the possibility of new backerboard/cement board which will run you another $200. You also have the cost of mud and grout which will cost you another $50. If you do the work, fine, but if you hire it out, you have another $500-800 to get it done.

If you do a vanity instead of a pedalstal sink, you will run anywhere from $300-600.

You are correct, you can do it cheaper by going down a certain path (sinks, toilets, amount of tile/travertine, etc.) and save costs. If you do the work, you will save a lot of money though it will take a ton of time if you don't have experience on it.

FWIW, a $2000-5000 bathroom remodel would be considered very low nationally.