Rising housing costs often deter homeowners from relocating to a larger, more expensive property. The added costs can be huge - not to mention the time it takes and the stressfulness involved with moving home. Many homeowners instead opt for altering their existing property to better fit their needs. Whether you need more space for a growing family, or you wish to add value to the property, there are multiple ways to achieve both, allowing for a much greater sale price when the time arises!
In this guide, we will show you 7 proven ways to add value to your home!
1- Fitting A New Kitchen!
Having a new kitchen fitted is a great way to add value to your home. The kitchen is the heart of any home. It is where you cook, eat, entertain and show off your superior culinary skills to your family and guests. Prospective home buyers are always going be interested in a well designed and fitted kitchen.
An attractive, high quality kitchen can raise the value of a property by around 6%. As an example, a £300,000 house could potentially be worth as much as £318,000 just by adding a new kitchen!
However, you should always be aware of the cost of having a new kitchen installed and seek independent valuations as to how this will effect the value of the property. Spending £25,000 on a shiny new kitchen if your home is worth £300,000 would be counter-productive, as you would never make any profit. But spending £10,000 on a kitchen would see an £8,000 profit almost immediately.
The same goes for owners of very expensive homes. Adding a cheap kitchen to a very expensive property could actually decrease it's value, so always do your research first!
A well-educated decision can drastically increase the value of your property!
2- Fitting A New Bathroom!
A new bathroom is almost as important to prospective buyers as the kitchen. It's much more than a functional necessity - it's a space for relaxation and pampering yourself, granting that much needed peace and quiet after a long day. Many of us love nothing more than to relax in a hot bubble bath with a glass of wine and some flickering, scented candles. The sweet aroma and bubbly warmth relaxes our muscles and melts away the stresses of day-to-day life. This means that a beautiful, classy and stylish bathroom is very high up on the 'necessity list' of any prospective home buyer.
Renovating your bathroom, or removing it entirely and fitting a new one can make a substantial difference to the price of any property. When done correctly, with a bit of educated thought and design, a new bathroom can increase the value of your property by 5% or even more!
Another option is to add a new bathroom entirely, perhaps by adding an en-suite to the master bedroom. An en-suite was considered a luxury many years ago, but it has since become a must for the majority of middle and upper-class buyers throughout the world! This little addition can also add a similar percentage to the value of your home and drastically increase buyer demand. Parents in particular love the idea of a child-free bathroom. It keeps all of your precious products and perfumes safe from little fingers, and allows for a relaxing pampering experience, free from interruption.
As with all renovation and re-modelling works, costs can vary considerably and accurate quotes must be structured to fit each individual's needs and desires. Does your new bathroom space exist already? Are you planning to extend your property to allow for the extra space? Will internal re-structuring need to be executed? What materials and fittings do you desire?
All of the above questions will need to be answered before you can begin to work out an appropriate budget. And as always, the overall value of your home will be an indicator of how much you should plan to spend if you would like to increase the value of your home to gain a profit.
3- Restructuring The Layout!
The layout of certain properties can be drastically improved for the modern homebuyer. Long gone are the days where many small rooms were fashionable. Nowadays, we love large, spacious areas to allow for bigger family gatherings and that feeling of extra space. The 'open-plan' design is now a very sought after trait in any property.
Take a good look at your home. Are there ways in which you could transform the layout of your property to maximise the floor space? Could you remove a wall between 2 small rooms to create one, much larger room? Often, it can be very simple and cost effective to change the layout of a property. Large, open spaces get the homebuyer's mind working overtime! They will be thinking of all the different ways they could fill the space with fancy kitchens, wine racks and dining areas.
As this is a very diverse subject and each individual property is unique, a percentage of value gained is practically impossible to predict without a plan for a specific property. We'll publish a blog containing a much deeper evaluation of the options available when it come to restructuring and remodelling and how each option can affect your properties worth. Keep an eye out for it!
4- Decorating Internally And Externally!
It's amazing how so many people think that decorating their house before a sale is not important. The reality is, whether or not the prospective buyer is going to redecorate, the décor of your home tells buyers a significant story about how well the property has been looked after. Tatty, stained walls and woodwork do not indicate a well looked-after property!
The same goes for the exterior of your property. You want your house to look as good as, if not better than the rest of the houses on your street. So take a good look at it from the road, how does it compare to the rest? No one will want to buy the most run-down house on the street! But if it looks the best, it could well be worth the most!
You need to take a good look at what work needs to be done internally and externally, and then figure out the costs of putting things right. This is exactly what your buyer will be doing as they look around. They will then over-estimate the cost of these repairs and start knocking them off of your asking price.
The statistics suggest that a clean, well presented house - inside and out - can increase your property's value by as much as 10 percent! This is a huge amount! So once again, weigh up the costs of these repairs and alterations against the potential value added and make an informed decision.
When preparing your house for sale, it also helps to decorate in a pale, neutral colour throughout. Not only is this the most cost effective approach to redecorating, but it also allows prospective buyers to see a blank canvas and imagine what they might do with it. Bright neutral colours also help to distribute light, and make each space look larger. What one person might consider a beautiful, tasteful colour scheme, another person may look at in complete disgust! Bright neutral colours prevent this judgement.
Always remove as much clutter as possible, this will make your house look much bigger and give it a cleaner feel. It's also a good idea to remove all personal belongings such as family photos, trophies, birthday cards and such. This will better enable buyers to see themselves living in your house. Remember; the buyer is not buying your home - they are buying a house to transform into their own home!
5- Extensions!
Extending your home to create more space is always practical and beneficial. You will always increase the property's value, so long as projects are planned and executed properly. Research conducted by Nationwide in the UK shows that an extension which adds a double bedroom with an en-suite to an existing 3 bedroom house can add as much as 23% to it's value! Now that's an exciting number! The research also shows that homeowners who do decide to extend, can expect a return of up to a 71% on their investment.
Now I personally don't know of any better, or more reliable ways of making a 71% return on any investment within a year. Not to mention the fact that an extension could take as little as one month to complete once plans, contractors and materials are in place. To make it even clearer, a £300,000 property could potentially be worth a whopping £369,000 after adding an extension similar to the one mentioned above!
As with all home improvement projects, having a professional and clear opinion of the potential added values of such works is priceless. You want to maximise your profits after all, so make sure to do your own research, and always get quotes from at least 3-5 reputable building companies before making a decision.
6- Planning permission!
Believe it or not, securing planning permission alone for certain extensions or external buildings can increase the value of your home by a whopping 10 percent! Many prospective buyers will be looking for a house with potential - somewhere they can improve as the years go by and their family grows. If you have already secured planning permission for an extension, or some other home improvement works that can add substantial value to the buyer, you will be able to sell your property for a much higher price!
Typically, an application for an extension in England currently costs around £206. To apply and be accepted, you will need to have a good idea of the works that could be carried out. Ideally, you would need to figure out how you could maximise the value of your home by extending in some way, and then get a plan (with technical drawings) in place to show how you would go about achieving this. These plans and drawings could be done at zero cost if you were able to create them yourself. However they would need to be pretty accurate, detailed, and conform to all building regulations to be accepted. The easiest way would be to hire an architect. This will save you considerable time and effort but can be very costly. Professionally drawn-up plans for a large extension project could easily cost you in excess of £5,000.
With that being said, £5,206 for a detailed architect's plan and your planning permission application seems a very small cost if your house is worth £500,000. This alone could increase it's value to an enormous £550,000. Not a bad investment if you ask me...
7- Garden Transformations!
When selling your home, its important to remember that you are selling a lifestyle. Each prospective buyer is judging your home by how well it will conform to their own individual needs. Whilst it's impossible to please everyone, there are many things that everyone wants and needs. By ensuring that your garden focuses on these requirements, you will maximise your property's selling potential.
Security! - Storage! - Maintenance!
Security is high up on everybody's 'needs' list. A secure garden will bring peace of mind to homebuyers everywhere. It can also bring your home insurance costs down. A sturdy fence, complete with a strong, lockable gate will bring that all-important peace of mind, and tick another box for your buyer.
Garden storage is also another necessity that buyers will be looking for. A good sized shed; sturdy, lockable, and in good condition can also add to the value of your home.
Maintenance is also at the top of most peoples priorities, however this will depend on the area that you live in, and the demographic of your buyers. In a busy city, with a younger to middle-aged buyer demographic, a low maintenance garden will more than likely appeal best. But, if you live in a more rural area, somewhere quiet with an older buyer demographic, they may be looking to retire and buy a property with a beautiful, flowerful garden. This should change the way you prepare your garden before putting your house on the market.
Research from various, reliable sources suggests that a well-presented, neat and tidy outdoor area can add as much as 20% to the value of your home. So if your garden is overgrown and neglected, make sure to have a good think about how you might improve it. 20% is a lot of money to lose! To put that into prospective, a property worth £300,000 with a tatty, run-down garden could be worth up to £360,000 if a very small amount of money was spent on it. Imagine how a £10,000 investment could completely transform your garden. Then imagine the £50,000 profit sitting in your bank account post-sale, or maybe the £50,000 missing from it if you don't take action...
It's a no brainer really!
Thank you for taking the time to read our guide! Please feel free to like and comment - your feedback means a lot to us, and helps us to improve our services and bring you all the best information! What topics should we cover next?
Our goal is to improve the knowledge of homeowners wherever we can by adding free, valuable information to our blog. Please note: The statistics within this guide are pulled from various sources. Although all the information within this guide comes from reliable sources, statistics may not be accurate at the time of this writing. JB Carpentry Plus LTD takes no responsibility for the outcome of any works, home improvements, or building projects that we do not plan and undertake ourselves. Neither will we be held accountable for the effects that any such work may have on property values. The information within this guide is intended for educational purposes only - to improve awareness regarding how certain aspects of properties may be affecting their value. Personal research should always be carried out before attempting any home improvements and always consult professional advice where necessary.