Many homeowners believe that the home improvements they make will boost the value of their home—in some ways, this mentality could cost them a lot of money.
There are five major mistakes that home sellers often make when remodeling their homes. By avoiding these mistakes, you can save yourself time, money, and several headaches.
1. Over-improving the property. When you remodel an area of your home, you need to make sure that it’s proportional to the value of the property. This includes things like highly upgraded appliances, steam showers, and other features that, per your neighborhood, won’t bring much value to your home in terms of the costs of those upgrades.
2. Home offices. If you have a home office that was once a bedroom, before you put it on the market, it’s probably better to turn it back into a bedroom. Bedrooms are going to be more important to most buyers. However, if you still need the home office, it’s okay to leave it as such, but you need to make sure the buyers understand that it was (and could be, for them) a bedroom.
3. Swimming pools and hot tubs. Though swimming pools are often an issue in Alaska, many people feel as though hot tubs bring an extra value to the buyer. While it might encourage the buyer to write an offer, it’s not really going to add much value in the eyes of an appraiser.
4. Roof and windows. If these are damaged, you’ll obviously want to fix them, but make sure you’re not spending too much on upgrading them; it will cost you a lot of money, but the buyer won’t likely assign as much value to it as what it cost.
5. Specialized areas. These are areas such as home theaters, wine cellars, and playrooms. These are for you to enjoy, but don’t leave them on the way out of the home. Again, these might be features that could draw a buyer in, but they might not make you any more money for the cost they took to put in.
If you are thinking about doing some home improvements, please feel free to give us a call. We’d much rather walk through and help you out than have you make a mistake and suffer for it. We hope to speak with you soon.
