If you own a home, you’re in pretty good shape. Though the housing market has its ups and downs as we all well know, by and large, your house will increase in value over time and you’re in a good position. However, there are ways that you can likely increase the value of your house efficiently and ways that you can just throw improvement money down the tubes. Some people think that it’s a bit of guess work on what improvements to make on your house, but there a couple of hints and guidelines that will maximize your chances of increasing your house’s value and put you in an even better position.
Projects that are most likely to increase the value of your home include updating your kitchen and bathroom. This is because both these rooms are telltale signs of how modern the entire house is. Cooking is increasingly chic and entertaining at the home is also more and more a desire for the new home buyer. Someone who is perusing new homes really likes to picture what life will be like in their new residence, so a tactfully updated and a clean, spacious bathroom are key.
It’s also important to reimagine some exterior parts of your house. New siding or a fresh coat of paint will draw many otherwise distracted eyes to your door, and because selling your house is truly a numbers game, that’s exactly what you need to do. When my mother and father sold their house a few years back, they invested a lot into landscaping the front lawn by adding gardens and stone. Such improvements are attractive and can add tremendous value to a home. Also, large landscaping improvements can be done very cheaply if you have a green thumb or are a DIY kind of person. Personally, spending time in the garden is among my favorite things, so my folks were smart enough to enlist my “expertise” and I helped them map out a cheap way to beautify our house’s exterior.
While there are some projects that will likely increase the value of your home, there are others that might be more of a waste of time and money. For example, turning a garage into a family room or transforming a spare bedroom into an office could be very avoidable headaches. For you, a spare bedroom could be better suited for another purpose, but to the buyer who might be thinking about having kids, that bedroom is exactly what they want. Projects such as these will likely cost too much, involve an area of the house that people don’t use every day, and likely, these “improvements” will reflect more of your own personal tastes rather than those of a prospective buyer. Leave these costs to the next owner, and focus your energy on those projects that will offer you the best payoff.
Selling your house is a stressful and emotional task, so it’s important to approach it with a clear strategy that works best for you and your pocketbook. Good luck!
