If you’re looking to sell your home while the market is still relatively buoyant, but you’ve been disappointed by recent valuations from estate agents, you needn’t despair. With these five cheap ways to increase the value of your home, you could command a figure more in-line with your expectations.
Everyone wants to get the best price for their home, but it is important to be realistic. There are very few things you can do to add tens of thousands of pounds on to the value without spending large sums, but take a look at our simple tips to spruce up your home and maximise what you get for it.
1. Paint your kitchen
Unless you have an unusually large kitchen, you shouldn’t need too much paint to give things a freshening up. You don’t need to paint the whole room either, simply choose to paint the cabinets or the walls a different colour, whichever needs brightening more.
Kitchens are one of the key rooms people are interested in, so keeping it fresh and inviting will help to boost how much value estate agents place on it. The less work potential buyers would have to do, the better.
2. Buff the bath
If you love a good bath, then you’ll understand the importance of buffing up your bathtub. Over the years they can become worn and grimey, but by giving it a good scrub, your tub could be made to look new. If a deep clean doesn’t work, you might consider investing in a new, cheap tub to give it the look and feel of a new suite.
Bathrooms, much like kitchens, are an area of the home people place a lot of value in, so presenting a clean and sharp bathtub will be a good investment.
3. New Caulk
Carrying on from the last point, with the knowledge that a bathroom is a prized part of any home, investing in new caulking is a wise move. Over the years you might have accumulated mould on your caulk or it may have become worn and discoloured. Applying a new layer of caulk after stripping out the old one is a simple task which quickly brightens up a bathroom once again.
Whether it’s around the shower tray, the bath or both, caulking won’t break the bank and will have an instant impact.
4. Declutter your home
Think back to when you viewed your property when buying – you were probably trying to imagine where furniture might go and what you would use certain rooms for. That logic applies when selling your home, since you want prospective buyers to see the potential it has and pay more to get it.
Declutter your home by getting rid of items you don’t need and tidying away those you don’t regularly use – rent space in a storage facility as an interim option if you have to, the cost will hopefully be surpassed by the extra amount added to the value of your property when it’s tidy and open.
5. Clean the carpets
We become so familiar with our homes that we sometimes fail to see the impact that time has on things. A carpet will be stepped, shuffled and possibly stamped on every day, so it stands to reason that they’ll become a little dirty and jaded looking.
With a professional clean, your carpets can be brought back to life and this will up the potential value of the home as they won’t look like they need replacing. You can hire a company to clean the carpet or simply hire the machinery and do it yourself.
