Upgrading your home on a budget can be frustrating! There are no limits to the things you can do and the things you can change on your property to increase its value when you’re trying to sell your home. For this blog post I am going to assume that your house is already in pretty good shape and we’re just looking to do some easy tasks to help spruce up the value of your home for the purpose of getting a better sales price. With that said, here are the top 5 things you can do on a budget to increase the selling price of your home!

 

1. Paint: Painting your home can be as complex or as simple as you have time and money for. If you’re on a really small budget for painting I can not stress enough that you should spend it on returning your custom paint colors back into neutral and non-emotional paint colors. You do not want to try and sell your house with all of your personal touches. It’s much easier for a prospective home buyer to consider purchasing your home if they can more easily imagine what it’ll be like when they own it and having your lime green kitchen paint isn’t going to help the sale. Moving on from that: make sure that your baseboard, window, & door trims are bright white and freshly caulked. If they’re dingy or messed up, caulk as needed and touch up the paint. If you have a slightly larger budget consider painting your cabinets and the rest of your walls in a neutral wall color.

2. Light Fixtures: Believe it or not; light fixtures can be an inexpensive way to upgrade your home without spending a fortune and you don’t need an electrician to do it! The wiring for light fixtures are pretty basic and can be completed by a novice as the wires are essentially color coded. When we remodel our investment properties we always upgrade all of the light fixtures, switches, outlets, and corresponding covers if needed. It is something that is commonly overlooked but can make a huge difference if your light fixtures and electrical receptacles are dated, dirty or dingy.

3. Landscaping:  There’s no better way to boost your homes value and curb appeal than through landscaping. Although it will take more than just sticking some flowers and shrubs in the ground and calling it a day. You’ll want to make sure the plants are something that are relatively low maintenance as you want your new landscaping features to be an asset and not a potential hindrance on your prospective buyers especially if they’re unfamiliar with how to take care of certain more sensitive plants. Your buyer will want to see a well manicured lawn as well. What is a well manicured lawn? A well manicured lawn is more than just a lawn that doesn’t look like a hay field. Allowing your lawn to become too long before it’s cut can cause the grass to become “burned” this is something that happens when grass is cut too short for it’s current length. Optimally you’d want a green lawn with few or no weeds and no grass clumps or clippings all over.

4. Appliances: Although one of the most expensive upgrades on this list it is also one of the most considered when new home buyers are looking at houses. Getting a bundle on the four main appliances in the kitchen will spruce up the area in the house. Stove/oven, dishwashers, refrigerators and microwave bundles are as low as $2,000 to high end to $7,000. Stainless steel models are much more appealing to the eye of a home buyer as well.

5. Cleaning: It seems like it would go without saying but most of us have seen the Febreeze commercials talking about being “nose blind”. It’s a real thing. Cat pee is one of the worst smells and almost impossible to get out and if your dogs have ever peed on the carpet, you may as well just replace the entire carpet because even with all of my experience we have NEVER been able to remove a pee smell from the carpet. Not with steam cleaning, expensive enzyme removers, bleach, vinegar, nothing removes the smell of pet pee because newer homes are built with OSB as the sub-floor which acts like a sponge and shampooing the carpet above the sub-floor will not clean the sub-floor. Make sure to clean your baseboards, around door handles, in & around toilets, showers, windows & their sashes, and any other little space that is easy to miss.

In this market we do not want to give our potential home buyers any reason to negotiate you down. A potential home buyer may not even care about something being dirty or a light fixture being out of date but they know it can give them some leverage in negotiating the deal.