The Complete Guide To Adding Value To Your Home

There are plenty of very good reasons to invest in home improvements for your property. You may have bought a home with the sole purpose of selling it on again as quickly as possible. If you are flipping a property in this way, then you will want to do as much to increase the value of your property, while spending out as little as possible. 

Similarly, you may have owned your home for some time already and have decided that it is time to sell up and move on to bigger and better things. Whether your home has held its value, lost equity, or has increased its worth is going to be an area that you will be concerned about. You would clearly hope that its value has improved, however, you may need to put in work to your home to ensure that it has risen.

Understanding The Value Of Your Property

There are many different factors that can affect the value of your property, and you should not assume that your home is worth more now than when you bought it. 

External factors such as the proximity of the property to main roads, shopping centres, or industrial facilities can affect it. There may have been developments in your area that could have vastly diminished the value of your home, or they could have dramatically increased the potential return.

The condition of the market when you bought your home in comparison to right now will also play a huge part in determining the amount of equity you may have in your home. 

Modernizing Your Property

But the controllable factor for you will be the condition that the home is in. It stands to reason, that a well looked after property will be worth more than one that is run-down. 

With that in mind, if you are planning on selling your home, it is always worth seeing what you can do to increase the value of your home. 

Kitchens And Bathrooms

Your kitchen is the hub of the home. You cook in it, and you may well socialise in it too. It gets a lot of use, and, because you cook in it, the room will get a lot of stick. 

Kitchen units and worktops have to be hard-wearing and long-lasting. It may be that your kitchen fixtures and fittings have been in place now for a very long time. If that is the case, they may well look a bit dated, and would potentially be a bit worn out by now. 

Granite Transformations have a range of modern and stylish kitchens that will not only last a long time and look great, but that will add value to your home. 

The other area of your home that may have become a little bit dated is the bathroom. Baths, showers, sinks, and toilets are fixtures that will get used several times each day, but they get replaced once in a blue moon. If your bathroom fixtures have been in place for a considerable amount of time, then you may well want to get these replaced with something that not only looks newer, but that has modern features that may be more appealing to a new buyer.

Improving Your Heating

If the heating systems in your home have been there for a long time, the chances are that they are not very energy efficient.  You can make your home much warmer and have a more cost-effective heating system by having your boiler replaced and new radiators fitted. You may also want to consider having a smart meter fitted by the energy suppliers too as this makes it much easier to manage household gas and electricity bills. 

Electrical Systems

Homes that are over thirty years old and that have not had any improvements made to their wiring systems may not have an electrical installation that meets modern needs. 

Homes these days run so many more electrical items at any one time in comparison to twenty or thirty years ago. All of these electrical items need sockets, and if you are having to daisy chain extension cables this is not ideal and dangerous. Having a lot of different electrical products in use at any one time will put serious demands on your home’s fusebox, and this can be quite dangerous as there is a risk of fire. 

Having your home rewired and additional sockets put into place will make it more suitable for the modern family’s needs while making the home much safer. 

Creating More Living Space

A common way of increasing the living space in a home is to add an extension to the property. This can either be done by having a two-story extension that adds downstairs living space, as well as an additional bedroom upstairs. Or, you could go for a conservatory.

Conservatories can make a nice, bright living space that you may want to use as an additional social area in the home. The downsides of having a conservatory are that they are not great on colder days as they don’t tend to retain the same level of warmth as you would find in the body of your home. They are also only on one level. So, for the amount of floor space they take up, they don’t add as much value as other types of extension. On the other hand, they are likely to be cheaper than a full extension. 

Getting an extension added to your home will be a good way of really adding some additional space. It could mean the difference between having multiple additional bedrooms added, en suite bathrooms, or additional functional rooms such as an office or a dining room.

Planning permission is a big hurdle that you will need to leap in terms of getting your extension fitted. You may face objections from neighbors if your planned add-on would affect their view in any way, and you might also get rejected and lose any money you’d have put into the planning process. It can also take a very long time to get approved for planning permission too.

Attic Conversions

One of the more cost-effective and simple ways of adding living space to your home is to make use of a space that is already in existence but is not in use. 

Converting your attic into an extra bedroom or an office can be very useful and would improve the value of your home quite easily.

Basement Conversions

If you have a basement that is not in use, you could make this into a dining room, kitchen, games room, office, or a living room. You may need to try and find ways of bringing natural light into your basement. However, a basement conversion could add a significant amount of floor space to your home and allow you to re-purpose many of the rooms you already have in your home.

Garage Conversions

Another option would be to convert an adjoining garage into part of your home. By blocking off the garage door, adding windows, plasterboarding, and installing heating, you could create a room that you could use for many things such as a kitchen, dining room, office, games room, or a living room. 

Improving The Look Of Your Home

How your home looks are important. If it looks shabby, then it can be very off-putting to potential buyers. Invest some time into redecorating your home throughout before putting it up for sale. 

Interior Design

Neutralising the interiors of your home will make it more accessible to potential buyers as it will allow them a blank canvas to envisage the home the way that they want it. Using white paint is a good idea because it will help to reflect the light, making the rooms appear more spacious. 

Exterior Design

First impressions are vital, and how your home looks for the outside is crucial. This means that you should make sure that the home has had a good clean up outside, that gutters and roofing is all in good condition, windows are cleaned, and that window ledges and walls are painted if needed. 

The Garden

Pay some attention to the garden, a well-landscaped garden will improve the value of your home considerably. Think about making any lawns level, and including some outdoor social areas such as a patio or decking too.