The current sellers’ market in real estate has encouraged many homeowners to sell their homes to profit from the low supply of homes. If you are thinking of selling your home and make money from the property you bought decades ago, you may want to work on increasing its retail value first before listing it on the market.
You have a lot of options in increasing the resale value of your home and allow you to get more from your investment years ago. Here are some things you can do to increase the resale value of your home.
Enhance the Overall Appeal
The first thing you should do is to enhance the curb appeal of your home. Since you want to impress potential buyers of your home, you should make sure you catch their attention even before they step inside the home. Enhancing curb appeals means you have to maintain the lawn and ensure the frontage of the home looks great. You can also plant flowers to make the home stand out in the neighborhood.
For the interior, you can work on the bathroom and kitchen. Updating these areas allows the home to reach its highest possible value. You do not need to install marble floors or a heated towel rack. You can remodel the kitchen and bathroom to make them functional and pleasing to the eye.
Increase Usable Footage
You can also increase the usable footage in the house. Or in other words, adding a room to increase the size of the home. Increasing the usable area in the house gives buyers more options when it comes to upgrading a house they acquired. Bigger homes also have higher values, which buyers notice even if the appraiser does not officially acknowledge the value it adds to the home.
Increasing the space does not always mean adding a room since you can also install a retractable patio awning to increase the living areas in the front of the house. The device allows you to enjoy the shade or the skies by extending or retracting it on your patio. Another option is adding a deck or working on the basement to make it livable.
Install Smart Devices
Making your home smarter is a good way to increase its value in the market, especially when a lot of buyers right now are tech-savvy. You can start by installing smart thermostats, security cameras, doorbells, and smoke detectors.
While some real estate professionals are not convinced that smart devices increase the value of a home, many tech-savvy homebuyers are keen on paying a premium price for these added smart features. Installing many of these smart devices does not need a licensed professional. So, you can install them yourself as long as you know how to follow instructions. They also do not cost as much as remodeling the bathroom or kitchen.
Make It Easy to Maintain
One concern that many buyers have is the amount of maintenance they have to set aside for the home they are buying. They are not keen on making emergency repairs on different components of the home after they move in. To allay their fears, you should enhance the home to make maintenance a breeze.
For instance, you can remove the carpet on the floor and put in hardwood panels. This makes it easier to clean up the floor in case the buyers spill something on it. You can also use vinyl sidings to replace the wood siding you use to have in the home. The main idea is to make it easy for buyers to maintain the home once they acquire it.
Increase its Efficiency
Aside from maintenance, buyers are also concerned about the energy efficiency of the house. Many homes with energy-saving features are appealing to environment-conscious buyers. Aside from protecting the environment, these buyers can also apply for an energy-efficient mortgage (EEM) if they purchase an energy-efficient home.
An EEM has lower rates that give buyers bigger purchasing power. It also allows buyers to take in more debt when they purchase energy-efficient homes. Before financing is approved, a professional home energy rater conducts a home energy assessment on the home the buyer intends to purchase.
The rater will verify if the home has features that make it energy-efficient or will become energy efficient after the completion of the enhancements on the home. The assessment provides an estimate of the monthly savings on energy the home offers. It also shows the value offered by the energy-efficient measures of the home. This value is also known as the Energy Savings Value.
Enhancing a home to increase its resale value allows homeowners to take advantage of the current surge in the real estate market in the US.
