7 Tips to Increase Your Home’s Value


 

Perhaps you plan to sell your home someday. Perhaps you feel like you are settled in for the long haul. Perhaps you just bought your home.

Whatever the case may be, it’s possible that someday you will want to sell your home. Whether that is an immediate concern or something that seems like it’ll be further down the road, you should be prepared. Part of that is knowing the market, but part of it is also just making your home as attractive to buyers as possible.

There are simple things you can do while still living in your home to increase its value if you ever do decide to sell. Some of these items are things you can and should do as regular maintenance anyway. Others are special projects that you might need to plan and budget around.

Here, you can find seven tips to increase home value. Pick and choose what works for you and your life right now, depending on when and if you plan to sell.

1. Replace the Roof

Replacing the roof is a concern for every homeowner. It’s a fact of life that every homeowner will eventually need roof replacement.

Replacing your roof doesn’t need to be a drain on the finances, however. It can actually be a great way to increase your home’s value.

These days, there are a lot of different materials you can use for replacing your roof. You don’t need to stick with what’s already there or only traditional options. More modern options are very appealing to buyers and can increase your home’s value.

No matter what material you use, replacing your roof is one of the best tips to increase home value. The mere act of replacing the roof with a professional roofer can up your home value by thousands of dollars. It increases the homes resale value and avoids building inspection issues.

On top of that, you could get a longer warranty on a newer roof. If you use newer roof technology you can also reduce your heating and cooling costs.

Metal roofs, asphalt roof shingles, and even grass roofs are all in use these days. They can save energy even while improving your home’s value. You don’t need to stick to just the traditional options. If you’re interested in a metal roof, contact metal roofers in your area to learn more. You might find a surprising new option that you never even considered before.

Even if you go with a traditional roof, you stand to make a good return on your investment by replacing your roof.

2. Do Some Landscaping

Landscaping is a great way to increase your home’s value. It’s not just a cost-effective way to increase your home’s value, but it also helps you make a stunning first impression with buyers.

Roofs and landscaping are close to the top of our list of tips to increase home value because both are connected to the first impression. When buyers come to look at the house, the landscaping and the roof are two of the first things they’ll notice. They may not even make it inside if those two factors don’t impress them.

There is a lot you can do when it comes to landscaping. Even a simple garden can be an attractive addition to your house. Some plants such as vegetables, fruits, and flowers can add a splash of color and freshness that make your whole home feel warmer and more inviting.

However, landscaping isn’t just about plants. You can also get creative with things like statues, fountains, decorations, and walkways. Doing some paver installation, either on your own or with the help of a contractor, could create lovely pathways through your landscaping. It doesn’t need to be elaborate, either. A simple path can still make your yard look elegant.

This is one of the best tips to increase home value because the return on investment tends to be very high. Even spending just 5% of your home’s total value on your landscaping can come back to you in the form of a 150% return on your investment. That’s a huge increase compared to how much money you need to spend out of your own pocket.

3. Check Out the Garage, Basement, and Attic

If your home has a garage, basement, and attic, don’t overlook these places when searching for tips to increase home value. It’s easy to write off these spaces as places simply used for storage, but these areas are useful and attractive to buyers.

For example, if you hired a roofer anyway to replace your roof, you should consider the attic that is under that roof. Certain roofing materials will make the attic much colder or warmer by changing how well it is insulated.

This impacts not just your heating and cooling costs, but also how usable that attic space is. A place that is very cold and perhaps leaky won’t even make a very good storage space. However, an attic that is more functional can be a great selling point for your house.

Another one of our tips to increase home value is to make sure your basement or garage is also comfortable. A basement can actually add a lot to your home. It isn’t just for storage. It can also be a spare bedroom or a place to entertain guests.

The same goes for your garage. You could use it as a workshop or a place to just kick back and relax if you aren’t storing your car in it. It doesn’t have to be only a functional space. You can also make it a fun space or a place where you go to do projects and work on your passions.

Both of these scenarios do require some commitment on your part to make these rooms more usable. You might look into things like better insulation, garage door services, changing the flooring, and adding furniture.

Even simple upgrades to a garage or basement can transform them into entire new rooms. That’s why this is one the best tips to increase home value. You’ll not only fix up a space and do your normal maintenance, but you’ll also create an entirely new room that can add to your home’s value.

4. Build a New Room

Speaking of new rooms, adding a new room is one of the best tips to increase home value. Add-ons and new rooms can make your home shoot up in value, whether you build an entirely separate new room or just renovate what’s already there.

You could start with a space like a basement or garage, as we suggested above. These are handy because they already exist. You could expand these spaces by working with contractors on residential concrete pouring or simple structural expansions.

This doesn’t just apply to the basement and garage, however. If you have spare rooms of any sort, think about how you can upgrade them. Even making simple upgrades is one of the best tips to increase home value.

For example, if you turned a basement into another bedroom, you can now increase the number of bedrooms you cite when you list your house on the market. That can be a massive increase in home value.

For those with bigger plans, don’t be afraid to go for it! Bigger renovations are also going to be costlier, but those costs can come back to you in the form of your home value increasing.

For example, if you renovate your kitchen, you should see almost 60% of your upfront costs coming back to you. Then there are bigger things. Wood flooring can return 106% of your costs.

You can take these renovations as far as you like. While considering these tips to increase home value, it’s important to be mindful of your current budget. Don’t overspend now assuming it will all come back. Work within your means and you can still get a big return on your investment when it comes time to sell your home.

5. Make Sure You Have AC

Speaking of upgrades, one of the best returns on investment actually comes from replacing your HVAC. Talk to an HVAC contractor before you start, but replacing your HVAC can get you about an 85% return on your investment. That’s a huge boost.

Which brings us to another of our tips to increase home value. Take a look at the home’s AC. This is becoming an increasingly important feature for buyers.

If you live in an older home, it might not have great air conditioning or any air conditioning at all. Depending on where you live, this could be a major issue. Installing air conditioning can be expensive, but it can also boost your home’s value.

These days, many buyers just take it as a given that they’ll have AC in their homes. It could detract from your home’s appeal if it lacks this crucial system.

Installing a new AC system doesn’t have the greatest return on investment at 35-50%, but it’s still important. You don’t want this to be a point against you with potential buyers.

Plus, installing a new AC system can make your current energy costs go down. If you are living in a home with an old or inefficient air conditioning system, you could be wasting money that could be better spent increasing your home’s value.

6. Check Out the Heating as Well

This ties into the heating as well. Often, heating and cooling are all one system, as is the case with an HVAC. So one of the best tips to increase home value is to upgrade both systems at once.

Make sure both the heating and cooling in your home are working well. As mentioned above, this not only makes the home more comfortable, but it also might save you money on energy costs. Whether your system uses heating oil that you need to regularly replace or uses a boiler to heat up water that’s circulated throughout the home, old and broken systems can be huge energy wasters and that isn’t money you want to throw away right now – or ever.

Heating and cooling isn’t just about air conditioning, though. It also means things like the water.

While searching for tips to increase home value, spare a thought for things like your water heater. These might not be the most exciting systems in your home, but they are very important to have working properly.

If necessary, talk to a contractor about tankless water heater installation or water heater repair and maintenance. No one wants to buy a home with a broken water heater on day one. You should also clean your existing water heater and HVAC if they don’t need to be replaced as this will keep them running smoothly and efficiently for longer.

7. Take Care of What’s Already There

On a similar topic, make sure you are taking care of what’s already there in your home. This means things like the water heater and heating and cooling systems, but it also means the electricity, the plumbing and just the general home.

Even if you know you are moving, one of the best tips to increase home value is to still keep treating the house like you’re going to go on living there. Continuing doing maintenance and cleaning the home as you normally would if you weren’t moving. This will not only make it more attractive to buyers, but it will also help keep it in good repair.

If you find you do need repairs, don’t panic. Routine repairs like residential plumbing repairs and electrical maintenance are nothing to get too worried about. Making these repairs can help you soar through inspections and get your home sold more easily.

Among our tips to increase home value: Don’t think of maintenance as busywork but rather as an opportunity. Truly, you can take even the most mundane of maintenance chores and turn it into a new way to increase your home’s value.

Increasing your home’s value is about more than just adding a bunch of fancy new things. It’s also about the little day-to-day things. Being able to tell buyers that the electrical and plumbing are in good repair and that the heating and cooling run efficiently are huge selling points. If you take the extra step to upgrade these essential systems, you can make your home’s value shoot up for very little effort on your part.



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