What can you do to add the most value to your house? How you can get the best return on your investment before you put it on the market? Don’t worry in this article we’re going to cover the top seven home improvement ideas that you can do to your property. These tips will help to increase the value the most before you put it on the market.
These tips are going to be for real people who may only have a few hundred bucks or a thousand dollars to spruce up the house. If you only had a small amount of money for renovation. Wouldn’t you want to spend it on those items that will bring you the highest return? Of course.
So, with that being said, let’s take a look at the top seven things you can do to get the best return on investment:
By HomeLight Homes
Painting
Number one in the list of home improvement ideas is painting, by far the best thing you can do to prepare your home to sell on a limited budget is to paint. If you want to freshen up living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, it really whatever needs it is painting with a fresh coat of paint with a light and neutral color.
If you already have a light-colored paint job in your house, then maybe you can get by just doing touch-ups. But if you have bold colors like red, yellow, green, purple, and basically anything that would catch someone’s attention, your best bet is to get a fresh coat of neutral paint.
You don’t want to make people remember the paint color of your house. You almost want the paint to be an afterthought as its purpose is to open up the space, make the room look larger, and compliment any furniture in your house.
Light Improvisation
Number two in the home improvement ideas list is to improve lighting where possible, don’t go out, and buy a lavish chandelier. Spending money on a fixture that clearly doesn’t fit the space is not worth to style or size. Whereas the goal of the paint is always to avoid unwanted attention.
But light fixtures allow people to notice, how nice the fixture is and how bright the rooms are. The best part about it is you can go to Home Depot and get really nice-looking track lighting and other lighting fixtures for only a hundred bucks or even cheaper.
Old and outdated light fixtures detract people from recognizing the real value of the house. New lighting fixtures brighten up your house, make your home look bigger, and it’s one of the best investments you can make before your sell your home.
Replace Accessories
Number three is to replace home accessories like wall switches, faucets, knobs, and door hinges and handles. These small things make a lot of difference in the overall look of your home. These are fixes and upgrades that can be done at very little cost, end up making a huge difference.
Now you may be thinking, what am I going to spend, by replacing wall switches you can redeem more than the spent value. Think in terms of time on the market. Your home may not sell for more directly because you take out your doorknobs from the 1940s and replace them with ones from this century.
Changing those old and outdated outlets, strange fixtures, and dirty or yellow wall lights, and switches will provide a new look and new ones will pair well with your fresh coat of paint.
Kitchen Upgrades
Number four in the home improvement ideas list is to do minor kitchen upgrades, now I say this one with a little bit of hesitation because sometimes we can get carried away in the kitchen. We’re not talking about any major, heavy-duty job or opening up walls.
Things to consider on a tight budget would be to install attractive kitchen countertops, custom backsplash, or reface the cabinets. But if your kitchen is outdated or a little behind the times, doing one of these things can help significantly.
If you are able to do one of the three only, preference doing the countertops first. Your kitchen may have the best and nice kitchen countertops already, opt for refinishing the cabinets. If it has both of those, put in a cool backsplash. That’s what buyers are looking for these days. Be sure to pick a design that won’t turn off buyers. But sexy kitchens sell properties, if it’s in your budget consider doing minor upgrades to the kitchen.
Floor Upgrades
Number five is installing hardwood floors instead of carpet floors to maximize the décor of your home. Imagine if your living room, dining room, rec room, or even bedroom that has an old carpet and needs to be replaced.
Well instead of replacing it with carpet, consider replacing the carpet with laminate hardwood floors. Hardwood floors make homes feel bigger and this is what buyers want.
Nobody wants carpet anymore, again, this one might be something where the budget is an issue, so if it is, maybe only install hardwoods in the living space. The first impression is everything with buyers and new hardwood floors instead of carpet is a great way to impress buyers and to make your space seem much larger.
Home Staging
Number six in the list is staging. Staging your property to sell is one of the best things you can do to sell your home quickly. Here’s the deal, no matter what anyone tells you, most buyers cannot imagine how furniture will fit in a room unless they see it in person.
Not only those staged homes will have a warm, homey feeling as compared to vacant homes giving unfriendly vibes. The pictures online will also look better, rooms will look bigger, awkward spaces can be taken care of. Above all staging helps place the attention on the benefits of the homes and hide any flaws from the buyer.
Landscaping
Finally, number seven is landscaping, the great part about this one is that you can do it yourself and do not want much investment! You can do it just by spending very little on plants and mulch. First things first, you have to have the nicely trimming of the grass at all times.
We had a home listed for sale over the summer and I went to do the open house about 2 weeks after we listed the home and the entire front yard was overgrown. I’m thinking, what are we doing? An unkempt yard and poor curb appeal could already seal the fate of the home even before the buyer walks through the front door.
Landscaping can be very expensive, what you want to do is to get your yard looking nice, get rid of weeds, mulch where necessary, add some flowers depending on the season.
Make sure the home looks as good on the outside as it does on the inside. There you have it, the top seven things you can do on a budget to get the best return on your investment.