Estimated reading time: 12 minutes
Learn how to increase your home’s value before selling. Find out what steps you can take to improve your home’s appearance and maximize its selling potential.
Whether you’re getting your home ready to sell or perhaps it’s your retirement investment, maintaining the home value is essential.
Curb appeal is everything and one reason someone may be interested in viewing your house.
There’s also a buyer beware when buying a house and not considering the costs to maintain and increase home value.
Increase Home Value From The Outside In
Today, I want to touch on two critical topics for those who want to increase home value before selling.
- What you can do to increase home value?
- How you may be decreasing home value?
Sprucing up the outside of your home can net you a 25%-50% return on investment.
The first sight by a potential buyer is your home’s exterior and landscaping, which gets them through the door.
Spring, summer, and fall are the busiest times for realtors, home buyers, home sellers, and private sellers and buyers.
This is when people want to either downsize, upsize, or move out of the country.
Our neighbours are moving out of the country in a few months, and they are getting the house ready for sale.
Renovating Before You Sell Your Home
Should you renovate before you put your house up for sale?
Well, that depends on what value you would get from it.
If you renovate using the cheapest materials and cutting corners, that won’t work.
Buyers and realtors can see things even if you don’t think they can and won’t pay for shady renovations.
To get top dollar, invest in your renovations and include top-value materials.
Put it this way: how would you feel if you purchased a home where the seller slapped renovations together just to look good?
You would be angry, wouldn’t you?
After seeing some of the renovations in our house, we are angry.
The key to getting the top price when selling is the home value and what you’ve put into it over the years.
Selling your home with high expectations without considering the home value can prevent you from meeting your goals.
Bidding Wars To Purchase A Home
Some buyers are taking hits and paying well over $100,000-$300,000 or more after asking.
Houses are selling like hotcakes in parts of Ontario and other parts of Canada, and an increased home value can significantly improve profits when you sell.
However, buying a house has become a bidding war, leaving buyers in a rut, including first-time buyers who get into the market.
Related: I’m in a Bidding War. How Much Should I Bid?
Comparatively, market conditions also dictate home value, so the next house for sale may be higher when the value is up.
This also includes no conditions such as a home inspection, flexible closing date, and downpayment because the inventory in some cities is so low.
Nevertheless, you can run into significant financial problems with a house that will cost you to repair.
Home Value Landscaping and Maintenance
Will landscaping increase your home value?
When we bought our first home in Ontario, we scored a great deal using one income instead of using two incomes.
So, we would pay for the mortgage, property taxes, and utilities out of my net income.
Additionally, out of Mrs. CBB’s pay, we’d pay for everything else as needed, which meant we had wiggle room.
Thankfully, we were smart enough to purchase a starter home, which we love because Mrs. CBB lost her job three months into home ownership.
Furthermore, if we had to sell the house because of income loss, we wanted to know how to increase the home value.
A few items caught our attention during our negotiations through relators to buy the home.
- The homeowner smoked in the home.
- Nothing in the home has been renovated since it was built in 1997.
- Mice were living in the house’s walls, including the basement insulation.
- Surprisingly, a new roof was needed.
- Landscaping was a disaster back and front.
- No central air A/C.
- The Water softener was not functioning correctly.
The list is endless, and before you think we bought a lemon, check your home thoroughly.
I bet plenty of homeowners have had the wool pulled over their eyes when they purchased their homes.
Home Buying During The Winter
When you can’t see what you are buying on the outside, you will know when the snow melts.
We honestly thought the homeowner had a grave where she planted flowers.
Notably, it was a raised oval garden made from bricks in the middle of the property.
While the front landscaping cost approximately $5000 to update during the summer, the back was in just as much need of help.
However, if I had hired a company to do the landscaping, it would have cost us double that amount.
These days, we are prepared to spend upwards of $5000 plus a year renovating and doing more upkeep.
Outdoor Maintenance To Increase Our Home Value
Unfortunately, we weren’t prepared for the melt and had a bit of work to do outside.
The idea we both went for was simple or what you could call low-maintenance landscaping on a budget.
- New Landscaping front and back
- Painted the garage
- Patched the driveway and asphalt driveway sealant
- New Outdoor lighting and ground lighting
- Built rock gardens with weed protection
- Added large stones for a retaining wall
- New front steps and two side rock steps to go into the back garden
- Removed the caulking around the windows and replaced it
- Fixed the front concrete porch to get rid of the stains
- Remove and put a new Alexandria Moulding PVC Square Post Cover
- Designed and created a new interlocking brick path from the front steps to the driveway.
- Dug the entire front yard 5 feet deep after I got the go-ahead from Call Before You Dig and removed weeds, rocks, and grubs.
- I delivered and installed fresh turf only after I dug a drainage system from the side of the house towards the road. I also had to move our neighbours downspout as it was facing the wrong way.
- Every outdoor vent around the house was replaced.
- Spray-painted the house number black.
- Removed the seal around the garage door and replaced it (we plan on getting an insulated door next)
- 3 new bushes and shrubs were added to the front along the side of the garage and walking path.
The List Keeps Growing
- New $6000 roof after moving in with new skylights as the others were leaking.
- Removal of the climbing bush of sorts that took over the side of the house and overtop of the entire garage. Unfortunately, I forgot what it’s called, but it’s the worst thing to remove. The bricks had spots on them that we had to scrub after. I would see lots of this in the UK, but it’s unsightly and will ruin the brickwork.
- Painted the half-moon air vent over the top of the garage.
- The city planted a fruit tree at the front of our property, closer to the sidewalk. The tree is a serviceberry tree from which we make homemade jam.
- Installed a new front door with a window insert to remove the cheap door causing heat loss.
- Fixed the parging around the entire house as it was cracking
- I completed a full teardown of our upstairs bathroom, at which time I found mouse poop, dead mice, and a large opening to the front porch.
- I replaced the downspouts with new ones and ensured they were draining away from the house.
- Cleaned the leaves and other materials found in the eavestrough
- Built a new fence as the wood fence was not installed properly and fell over.
- The sunroom screen door window did not close (the inspector missed that), so I replaced the door.
Related: Discover the process and costs of vinyl siding installation. Learn about our experience replacing a sunroom, siding, soffits, fascia, and more for our family home.
It seems like lots, and it was and continues to be since maintaining a home increases the home value inside and out.
Replacements To Increase Home Value Long-Term
increase home value
Luckily, the windows in our home are in great shape.
Windows are a great way to increase home value as they are a long-term value along with a roof, doors, and structural issues with the home. (I had to deal with one major structural issue.
I clean the inside and outside of all the windows around the house each season.
During the winter, we remove the screens to prevent mold from condensation.
Next time you go for a walk around your neighbourhood, look at the windows, and you’ll see some with black mold.
This is because they are not maintaining the windows correctly, extending their life.
Let’s also remember that everything was just for the front of the home.
How To Determine Home Value
Real estate market value is far different from your MPAC assessment since realtors consider comparable homes in your neighbourhood.
A realtor will look at three things when determining your home value, especially if you want to sell.
- Market Value
- Appraisal Value
- Assessed Value
The market value of your home is whatever someone is willing to pay you for it.
An appraisal value is determined by the study of comparable properties and local market conditions.
Assessed Value is completed by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC).
The main purpose of an MPAC assessment is for your municipality to calculate property taxes.
For example, there are aspects of your home that will increase your home value and property taxes, such as:
- Inground Pool
- Finished basement
- Fireplace gas or wood
- Amount of bathrooms
- Heating and cooling system
The problem is when homeowners fail to report renovations or get permits.
When homeowners fail to report, they help to skew the statistics and home value in the neighbourhood.
How To Increase Home Value With These 10 Tips
I had 10 tips in mind to help increase your home value but ended up with more.
When renovating and upgrading, there are many things to consider to get the best return on your home when selling.
- Landscaping front and back of the home
- Clean exterior of the home with a new insulated garage, clean window, and no mold
- Updated Kitchen with sparkly appliances
- Newly renovated and updated bathrooms
- Hardwood, Engineered, Laminate, luxury vinyl flooring
- New Windows
- Finished Basement
- Location of your home
- New Roof, whether it be shingles or a metal roof
- Indoor Maintenance, including cleanliness, blinds, curtains, painting, etc.
- Removal of electric heating where possible
- Upgrading the electrical panel
- Repair any structural issues
Increase Home Value By Planning Ahead
One of the worst things you can do as a homeowner is wait until the end to update your home.
When you’re pressed for time, it may be impossible to increase the value of your home before your house goes on the market.
Planning to sell your house with a date and agenda in mind will determine what projects to tackle first.
You’ll also be able to decide which home renovations will offer optimal returns.
Lastly, creating projected expenses in your budget and saving money for the upgrades will make the process easier.
Discussion: What renovations have you done to increase home value?
Please leave me your comments, ideas, and experiences below.
Mr.CBB