10 Easy & Cheap Ways To Up Your Home Value
There are literally dozens of ways to improve the value of your home. If it is time to put yours on the market of if you are looking at an upcoming appraisal for a refinance, you have a lot of options. Take a look at some of the top choices to consider if you desperately need more money for your home. Most of them are even very inexpensive.
1. Paint Your Front Door
One of the first things that people see when they come to your home is the front door. What does yours look like? If you have not given it any attention in several years, it probably does not look too hot.
This is one of the most effective and cheapest improvements that you can make. All it takes is a quart of exterior paint for the outside and a quart of interior paint if you would like to paint the inside as well. You might as well, while you are at it.
Then just remove the door know and locks, give it a quick coat and let it dry. Aim to do this on a nice day because you will have to leave the knob and lock off and the door ajar until it dries. Don’t be afraid to make a bold statement with your door, such as going red. Just make sure that it is a color that would appeal to many.
2. Clean Your Home
A messy home gives people a negative opinion of how your abode was taken care of. Lack of cleaning makes people think that you did not care about your home and probably didn’t pay attention to other areas such as maintenance.
Give your home a top to bottom cleaning before putting it on the market or getting an appraisal. If you do not care to do it yourself, a couple hundred dollars for a maid service is money well spent.
3. Add Some Flowers
Simply adding 20 dollars in flowers to that flower bed can do wonders for your home’s curb appeal. Everyone loves a flower and anyone can plant them. Dig a hole, insert flower, cover with soil. Easy as could be.
While you are at it, take the time to clean out the weeds from your flower bed. It takes just an hour or two and will help to set off the flowers. When you are done, a little grass and weed killer sprayed around the edges will keep your beds clear for weeks.
4. Clean Your Carpet
You may have cleaned your home and even given the floors a good mopping, but what about the carpet? You might think that your carpet is even beyond saving but you are probably wrong. A good cleaning can give even the dingiest carpet a new life, plust it will improve the smell of your home.
When it comes to carpet cleaning, you can rent a machine and do it yourself for around $50 to $60 or you can pay about 3 times that and get it done professionally. The professional route will yield far better results so if your rugs need more than just a little freshening, you should go that route.
5. Point Out Your Home Features
If you are present for the home inspection, it may not be a bad idea to point out all of the key features to your home and the improvements that you have made. You can even go as far as explaining things that make your neighborhood so great.
Be sure to keep your conversation with the appraiser short and simple though, they have heard it all before. The last thing that you want to do is nag or annoy the person who is going to decide your home value.
6. Remove Pet’s From Your Home
Not everyone loves your pet. They might be cute to you, but a nuisance to others. In addition, many people with allergies might never consider purchasing a home that has had a pet in it.
Find a place for your pet to stay while the home is sold and/or gets it’s appraisal. Be sure to remove all traces of your fur buddy with a complete cleaning and removal of their toys, dishes, etc. If you are a dog owner, do not forget a thorough sweep of the back yard.
7. Make Needed Repairs
If you are like most people, you probably have a lot of little pesky repairs that need to be made. This might be a running toilet, a light switch that doesn’t work or maybe something more serious like a malfunctioning furnace.
If you want to get the most for your home, you should get them repaired before you sell it or have it appraised. It might only cost you 750 dollars to fix the furnace but you might get dinged 2000 dollars on the appraisal. Unless you just can not afford it, get these things fixed, don’t be cheap because it will cost you more in the long run.
8. Change Your Door Hardware
Is your home still rocking brass door knobs from the 1980’s? Now is a great time to change them out and give your home a more modern look. A simple interior door know can be had for less than 10 bucks a pieces. You might only have 10 to 15 knobs in the house, so for less than 200 dollars, you can get quite a change.
9. Replace Light Fixtures
Just like door knobs, lighting is cheap and easy to replace. A simple bedroom fixture might only cost 20 to 20 dollars and a nice dining room piece can go for as little as 50 bucks. Changing a light fixture is both cheap and simple to do even for the most novice of DIY’ers. Most fixtures can be replaced in under 5 minutes.
10. Plant A Tree
Or maybe two. Nothing is worse than a yard without a tree. A mature trees can add 4000 dollars or more to a home value but even a young tree has it’s benefits.
Luckily, if you can dig a hole, you can plant a tree and the return on investment is huge. $20 to $40 for a tree, $5 for a bag of mulch and about 30 minutes of your time.
Wrapping Up
There are literally dozens and dozens of ways to spruce up a home for well under $100. Choose a few of the ones above or choose an improvement that is unique to your home. A simple walk around the home in the shoes of a potential buyer or appraiser should show you where you need work.
