Homeownership comes with many perks – besides having your own place to live –rent-free for life, you can actually build wealth by boosting the value of your house. By making specific home improvements, you can actually increase its value to up to 29%.
Certain things impact the home’s value, such as inflation, the availability of homes, and the number of potential buyers. Besides, there is never a guarantee that you will be ready to sell your house when the market is hot.
Actual Value vs. Perceived Value
There is a lot of confusion on what increases the value and what doesn’t. Homeowners waste loads of money on things that actually don’t matter. There is a need to understand the difference between actual and perceived values.
The actual value means that a house is worth $400,000, and then you do some tweaks here and there, and now, it is worth $450,000. This is an example of an actual value increase.
On the other hand, the perceived value is that you have a $400,000 house, and you make some renovations and adjustments around the house, and, now, the house is still worth $400,000.
Now that you have understood the difference between an actual vs. perceived value, we can proceed to the list of three ways to add value to your house, and if you make the proper adjustments and additions, your home will be worth a large sum.
Here is the list:
Focus on the Aesthetics
Instinctively, we like buying beautiful things, including attractive homes. While you get busy making your home prettier and boosting its value, you will also like living in it – once it is ready. The trend of aesthetics established an excellent selling point for the future.
Also known as home-staging, it has been analyzed that the property’s value was increased by 5% as compared to similar home structures – minus the aesthetics. Home-staging allows your home value to increase up to $3000.
However, don’t get overwhelmed with emotions and spend millions of dollars on home-staging projects with the only goal of boosting the value of your property – except when you have the budget and you know that you and your family will really enjoy the changes.
That said, if you decide to add some aesthetics to the place, you need a plan instead of planning on things haphazardly.
Some of the most popular indoor home areas staged by homeowners include the following:
- Dining Area – 70%
- Living Area – 90%
- Kitchen – 80%
- Bedroom – 80%
The aesthetics of your home isn’t limited to the indoors alone – you can significantly increase the value of your property by adding curb appeal to it. If you are confused about how to add curb appeal, you might want to ask a local agent for advice.
Another rule to follow while boosting the value of your house is to keep in mind that you will want to fix up your house to the level of what everything else is selling for. Even if you do your bare minimum, such as replacing paint and carpet, you might increase your selling price by $10,000, while it might have cost you merely $3000 to do that.
While adding beauty to your house, focus on your bathrooms, bedrooms, and square footage.
Boost Indoor & Outdoor Space
If you want to sell your home for more – you ought to know that bigger homes hold more value. If you do some research, you will know that the typical cost of a home is about $200 per square foot. Now, you know that by adding square feet, you can add value to your property.
To add space to your house, start with looking around and assessing the space where you can knock out some space and make your house bigger. Maybe, there is a convenient area in your home where you can benefit from an additional bathroom.
Perhaps, you can do with detached garages, such as the prefab garages, and boost the value of your house. Speaking of garages, if we look at the bigger picture and the potential future, one might think that we won’t need cars anymore.
There will be self-driving cars, and you won’t need to house them. The question is – what would you do then with your garage space? The answer is as simple as this – have your garage converted into a livable space and increase the value of your house.
By increasing the size of your home, you will increase its actual value. As we mentioned before – the square footage of a livable space drives the value of a house up. That said, if you have an underground base that is unfinished, and you finish it – it will increase the value of your house.
Whatever you do, make sure that the added space is something that is worth you and the worth of the home’s future value.
Boost Energy Efficiency
According to 70% of real estate professionals, boosting energy efficiency can increase home value. The question is which energy efficiencies to focus on to boost home value. According to recent trends, incorporating eco-friendly features is more crucial than ever before.
Here are some ways to add energy efficiency to your property:
- Install energy-efficient lighting.
- Install solar panels on the roof.
- Improve landscaping to conserve energy.
- Use energy-efficient home appliances.
- Install an energy-efficient heating and cooling system.
The additional benefit of making your house more energy-efficient is saving loads of money on your utility bills.
Final Thoughts
Your finances play a crucial role in boosting the value of your house. You might have already gathered an idea that the projects will cost you thousands of dollars, so you ought to be prepared to pay with cash.
We don’t recommend borrowing money for home maintenance and fixing, despite what you might have heard from your broker agent. You need to commit to a monthly budget and maybe get together with a professional financial planner to plan the additional cash flow.
Besides, if you are confused about the potential value of your house and when the perfect time is to sell, you will need to get professional advice from a real estate agent who will then help you get the most value for your property.
