When you’re considering how to improve your home, it’s important to have your priorities in order. Improving your quality of life is a major factor, as it involves styling the home to suit your needs, but beneath that, you might want to remember that your home is also an asset. Some improvements can improve the value of that asset, especially important if you think that you may one day want to sell, whether to downsize or move away. For that reason, we’re going to take a look at the home improvement projects that tend to do the most for the value of the home and why they’re so potentially lucrative.
Modernise The Kitchen
Any real estate agent will tell you that the kitchen is one of the most important rooms for selling a home. As it’s one of the most important shared spaces, and a highly practical one, if it isn’t useful, convenient, and modern-feeling, then the home’s overall value can suffer for it. Kitchens don’t always require a complete remodel. Sometimes, replacing ired cabinet doors, updating worktops, improving lighting, adding better storage, or installing energy-efficient appliances can be enough to give it a good value bump. However, if you have a larger budget, then you could make a much larger difference by creating more preparation space or turning it into an open-plan kitchen-dining area.
Upgrade The Bathroom
The bathroom can be just as big a part of the home’s overall value as the kitchen for much the same reason. A dated, cramped, or poorly ventilated bathroom can make a property feel neglected, even if the rest of the home is in good condition. Simple improvements such as replacing old taps, updating tiles, fitting a modern shower screen, improving storage, and adding better lighting can make the room feel cleaner and more luxurious. However, you can get the most value out of major projects like adding a walk-in shower, installing some underfloor heating, or even creating an en-suite for the bedrooms of the house.
Add An Outdoor Living Area
As the weather seems to get hotter every summer, adding some outdoor living space has become more and more valuable. More buyers are looking for spaces where they can relax, socialise, and dine right outside their doorstep. As such, adding a patio, some decking, or even a well-designed seating area to your garden can make the property feel much more usable in the good weather. These additions tend to be relatively affordable, providing that you have he space at the ready, so it can free up a little more budget to make that space even more usable with some exterior lighting, shade (such as an awning) and perhaps even some outdoor heating.
Extend The Home
Of course, despite the suggestions provided here, the one surefire way to give your property a meaningful bump is to invest in giving it more usable space. Provided that they’re well planned, with legal compliance and permits already in consideration, home extensions to the side, rear, or any other part of the home can give your home value a significant increase, making it suitable for larger families or just more flexible living. Extensions have to be carefully budgeted to ensure that they’re cost-effective, as their costs can rise quickly if you haven’t paved the way for a simple project ahead of time, such as finding the right team, affordable materials, and planning permission.
Finish Your Unused Spaces
Another great way to add usable space, so long as it applies to your home, is to look at the unused spaces that you might be able to convert into livable rooms. A lot of homeowners are turning their attics into additional bedrooms, their basements into home gyms, and garages into remote working areas. You have to consider the costs involved, as you’re likely to have to add insulation, ventilation, additional wiring, and perhaps heating to these spaces to make sure that they are safe, livable, and comfortable all year round. Providing that it’s not too complex a project, however, these conversions do tend to be cost-effective, adding more value than their costs. Especially true if you convert enough space to use a bedroom or bathroom.
Improve Your Energy Efficiency
Although it might not be as direct an improvement to the quality of life of the home as the others mentioned above, energy efficiency is a rising priority for a lot of home-buyers. Not only are more people cognizant of the environmental costs of how they’re living, but energy efficiency also means reduced running costs for them in the long run. As such, projects such as loft insulation, cavity wall insulation, double or triple glazing, smart thermostats, efficient boilers, solar panels, and draught-proofing can all represent a meaningful improvement to the home’s appeal. They might not be as visually exciting, so you have to make sure that you make active mention of these improvements when advertising the home or conducting walkthroughs, but they can and do make a difference in how buyers perceive the property.
Boost Your Kerb Appeal
First impressions can strongly influence how buyers feel before they even step inside. Kerb appeal projects are often relatively affordable, but can make the whole property look a lot better cared for. These improvements can include anything from repainting the front door and replacing old house numbers to powerwashing your landscaping, repairing your fencing, or simply tidying up the garden. If you want material improvements to the home’s property, then new landscaping and hardscaping tend to be the best option, but even a simple refresh of the appearance can generate more interest in the home, helping you maintain its value.
Not every single improvement listed here is going to result in the same value bump for every home. You need to consider your location and the type of buyer you’re likely to sell to. A proper valuation can help you get a much better idea of what your home is likely to fetch on the market, both before and after any improvements you make.
