With summer just around the corner, this is the time of year that many homeowners look at listing their house for sale. If you’re getting ready to get your house on the market while wanting to get the most out of your house, you may be unsure of what home renovations to complete to maximize your return on investment. While your real estate agent certainly can help, many experts agree that the best affordable home improvements to make before selling include:
- Outdoor living spaces
- Kitchen
- Bathroom
- Broken or outdated appliances
- Thorough cleaning
Affordable Home Improvements To Make Before Selling Your Home
We’ll dive deep into which projects take little to no money, what improvements are worth the investment, where to start with improvements, and how to maximize these home improvement’s ROI.
Outdoor Upgrades
Utilizing and improving your space outdoors can add to your curb appeal and is a smart way to expand the usable space to your property. Studies show that enhancing your home with certain outdoor upgrades produces some of the best return on investments. These updates to your outdoor living spaces can provide a return on investment over 90%. The best return on investment comes from:
- Replacing the garage door
- Replacing wood windows
- Adding a screened in porch
- Vinyl & fiber cement siding replacements
- Updating or creating a usable outdoor living space
- Enhancing and cleaning up the landscaping
Creating extra living space outdoors doesn’t need to be exhaustive but can be as simple as adding a fireplace. Similarly, cleaning or updating your outdoor space doesn’t need to be extensive, but should be enough to allow your home visitors to see themselves spending a quiet evening in the yard.
Kitchen Remodeling Updates
The kitchen is a place in the home that will always be used. As people tour homes for sale, they try to envision themself in the space. To help your future home visitors want to live in your space, making small improvements to your kitchen, such as
- Thorough cleaning
- Replace cabinet handles and sink fixtures
- Repainting walls and cabinets
- Update lighting features
These are affordable kitchen home improvements that can provide big returns. People who tour homes for sale and see an updated kitchen often feel like they can start living in the space sooner than if they had to remodel the kitchen. By choosing styles and paint colors that lighten and make your kitchen space feel bigger, you can maximize the investment and get those home offers at the price you want, up to an 81% return on investment.
Bathroom Remodeling Updates
The bathroom can be a luxury living space or a nightmare. Ensuring the bathrooms in your house are viewed as luxury to your future home visitors, you mainly want to give your bathroom a refreshing makeover. While you can go for luxury updates, such as heated tiles, there are more affordable renovation options that can improve your home’s value, including:
- A fresh coat of paint to walls and cabinets
- Update sink fixtures and cabinet handles
- Deep clean to remove any smells or mildew
- Crown molding to make the bathroom feel more spacious
Overall, people want to see clean bathrooms when looking at houses. While you can invest in upgrades that will help sell your home and provide a return on investment from 49%-79%, you want to ensure that the bathroom is a pro to your house, not a con.
Broken or Outdated Appliances & Features
When it comes to the appliances that you will leave in the house, ensure they still work. While you may choose to leave behind new or older appliances or take them with you to the next place, know that they can be used in negotiation. Here’s a few home improvements that can help increase your home’s likelihood of selling
- Kitchen appliances
- Outdoor features (grills, swing sets, roofing, etc)
- Indoor features (water heater, HVAC system, refrigerators, etc)
Negotiations can be as creative as the home buyer and home seller decide to go. To be prepared for whatever comes up during the selling and negotiation process, prepare what you are willing to update before listing the house on the market and what you are willing to upgrade if the buyer requests something in the offer. While “appliances” is a broad term, the return on investment averages from 60%-80%.
Deep Cleaning The House
Deep cleaning is a home improvement you can make with very little to no money, but can greatly improve the opinion of house viewers. By making your rooms sparkly clean and removing odors, your house doesn’t immediately give house visitors a feeling that somebody else has lived in this house, letting them picture themselves making this their home. Low cost home improvements include deep cleaning by:
- Vacuuming and carpet cleaning
- Cleaning windows
- Cleaning out fireplaces
- Deep cleaning built-in kitchen appliances
Ultimately, giving everything a quick scrub and decluttering before selling your house lets those touring your home see the house as a blank canvas and return an extra 3-5%. While it may feel like a small investment, there are very little costs associated with deep cleaning, but can boost the selling cost of your house. Remove the distractions of dirt, grime, and odors so the home tours can start imagining how they would personalize the space.
Need to replace your roof before selling your home? Contact Trout Roofing!
Our expert roofers will have your roof replaced in no time, letting you get your house listed and sold faster. Even if you have a metal roof, an asphalt roof, or tile roofing, our expert residential roofers will help you out, explain the whole roof replacement process and how it can impact selling your home. Contact us today for a free roofing inspection and get your house on the market in no time!