Whether you’re putting your home on the market in a few months or it’s something you know will happen several years down the road, renovation can sometimes substantially increase the resale value. If your planned sale is still some years away, you can enjoy the fruit of your labor, or your spending, for a few years. Below are some great ideas for renovating with an eye to selling sooner or later.
Home Elevator
It may sound impossibly extravagant or like an idea that is wildly out of scale for your home but that is a myth. There are residential elevators available in California that are attractive, useful additions to your home, making them more accessible to people who have mobility issues, which could be anyone at any time, not just older adults or people who have a permanent disability. Installing a home elevator is probably less expensive than you think, and it can be done in most structures that have two or more floors.
More Square Footage
When it comes to homeownership, the bigger, the better. Adding square footage adds value, so take a look at your home and think about what it most needs. Is it an extra bedroom, another bathroom, an office area or an expanded living room? If you don’t have any particular additional space needs yourself, think about what potential buyers might balk at in the future. More than a single bathroom is nearly always a good choice. If your house has two bedrooms, adding a third will open it to families with two children who want them to have their own rooms.
Update the Kitchen
Kitchens tend to be the focus of some of the most popular renovation projects for a reason. A kitchen can make or break a home sale, putting buyers off if it’s outdated and needs work and reeling them in if it’s attractive, new and has a lot of great features. If you’re selling soon and you don’t want to pay for a massive remodel that you won’t be able to enjoy yourselfand may not get your money back on, you don’t have to full on build the kitchen of your dreams just look for upgrades that cost less but might make a big impression, such as a new set of cabinets.
Low-Cost or Low-Effort
If you’re low on cash or energy, you may be surprised to find that many of the things that you can do to make your home more appealing to buyers are on the lower end in terms of both expense and time required. You might assume that potential buyers can see for themselves that replacing an ugly front door, taking up old carpet or repainting tired walls is fairly simple, but these relatively small changes can make a big impact.
Even just improving your landscaping, such as adding a few shrubs, can provide what is often called curb appeal. You could also work on staging. This is something you can do yourself to some extent by removing personal items, such as photos, but a professional staging company can do this work for you as well, some to the extent of repainting and renting furniture.
