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Increasing home value - cost effective way
1. Cleaning up
Buy a roll or two of trash bags. Clean up the junk outside the house -- from beer cans to raked leaves. People often get so familiar with junk around the house that they don't even notice problems with the house that prospective buyers immediately notice - weeds, a boat parked in the front yard an old car transmission on the side of the house, beer cans, a rain gutter that is hanging down. overgrown shrubs that obscure the front windows, etc.
2. Home improvements
When you're getting ready to sell your house, you want to be able to recover the money that you spend on home improvements. There are three considerations in deciding what improvements to spend money on.
- Spend money on what can be seen vs. what can't be seen.
- Fix up the exterior first, then the interior.
- Focus first on clutter, trash and bad smells that drive down a home's value. Then concentrate on landscaping. Prune hedges, trees and shrubs, especially if they obscure the front of the house. Paint. If the roof is dirty, hire someone to power wash it.
3. Make the inside spotless
Do the same inside the house -- reduce clutter and clean everything. If you own a pet, invite a non-pet owner inside the house to sniff around. It is a good idea to repaint the interior wall-to-wall and replace the carpets and vinyl flooring. People don't want to deal with painting and replacing carpet and fixing the house up. In the world of fast food and instant gratification, people just want to buy a house and move in.
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Gracie Kayany, Keller Williams Realty, 8175 Creekside Drive, Suite #100, Portage, MI 49024