Getting your home is exciting, but understanding how to retain value in your home is essential!
Whether you move into a brand-new turnkey home, or an older fixer-upper, updating and maintaining it are key to successful homeownership.
When you first start the path of being a homeowner, you want to customize everything and make the home feel like it’s truly your own. But, over time that energy could fade and the momentum could drop.
We’ve put together a list of 5 tips to increase (and retain!) the value of your home.
Tip 1) Painting
This is one of the best ways to retain value in your home!
It can be a very minimal upgrade, or completely change the look and feel of your home. Choosing trendy colours can offer a complete refresh and help keep your home looking up-to-date.
Homeowners can go to a local hardware store, or specialty paint store, and look at a paint swatches with hundreds of colours to choose from.
Many specialty paint stores have colours of the year that can offer a good selection of trending colours.
Photo Credit: Rachel Claire @pexels.com
Doing this helps in retaining the value of your home for a lower cost than some other home repair/refresh options.
Tip 2) Curb Appeal
Curb appeal is an important factor when it comes to retaining the value of your home.
It’s the first impression when someone pulls up to where you live. Often though, the outside of the house can often be overlooked, leaving curb appeal can be underrated.
While getting professional landscaping can break the budget for some, making small changes that are budget-friendly can help you retain the value of your home as well.
Adding a couple of shrubs or some charming flowers, like peonies or dahlias, is an easy way to increase the value of your home for a small cost.
If you face north, getting hosta plants for the shadier spaces makes your yard look well kept.
You don’t have to be a green-thumb, perennials are a good investment as they come back each year. Annuals are a good option if you’d like to change up the flowers each year.
Going a step further and removing the grass to add mulch with a few shrubs and flowers is also a trendy, low-maintenance way to increase your curb appeal and value.
If gardening isn’t your thing, doing something as simple as painting your door with a pop of colour like red can be a great way to go.
In fact, in some cultures red is considered lucky and can also mean ‘welcome’ or represent a safe haven.
Photo Credit: Max Vakhtbovych @pexels.com
Tip 3) Lighting
Lighting can set the ambience of your space and is a simple way to retain the value of your home.
You can get lighting fixtures that are hung from the ceiling, a floor lamp, or a small table lamp.
Get creative and decide if you want to invest in a statement dining chandelier or entrance lighting fixture or perhaps spread out the budget and opt for ceiling lamps around the entire house.
These lighting changes will have a lasting effect and bring an updated look helping increase the value of your home.
Local hardware stores have selection of lights you can easily install yourself. You can even order lighting online and have it delivered right to your door.
You can choose traditional designs, rustic styles, or contemporary options like pendant lights which have been very popular over the last several years.
Tip 4) Regular Maintenance
Not everything to retain value in your home has to do with aesthetics. Proper home maintenance is also very important.
Inspecting your roof to ensure that no shingles need to be replaced is something many homebuyers look. Having this maintained is great for retaining the value of your home.
In addition, making sure the concrete in and around your home isn’t cracked can help determine if there are some foundation issues that need to be tackled.
This is also a good way to prevent any potential flooding which could cause a lot of damage, with repairs that could hit your pocket hard.
Maintaining your appliances is also very important. While kitchen appliances are usually the first ones to be tended to, make sure you look at the furnace and hot water tank as well.
When you go to sell a home, potential buyers often will have a home inspection done. Regular maintenance ensures you’re not caught off guard with any issues that might come up on the inspection.
Tip 5) Annual Spring Clean/Stay Organized
A simple, yet very effective way to retain value in your home is by keeping it clean and organized.
Weekly cleaning and tidying are great, but doing an annual spring clean will not only ensure that your home is good shape but has health benefits as well. By staying on top of your weekly cleaning and tidying you can also improve the air quality in your home.
This can also create a clean, clutter free space which helps reduce stress, as well as increase focus and productivity.
Another simple, yet effective solution to retaining value in your home is keeping everything organized.
This way you are able to see all angles of your home and get into all the nooks and crannies to do any maintenance or repairs when needed.
Clean wall scuffs with magic erasers, fill-in wall dents or nail holes, replace weather-stripping on doors due to wear and tear.
Other Ways to Retain Value
In addition to our tips, you can always add value to your home by choosing to spend a little bit more and change items like cabinets, flooring or even redo your entire kitchen. While these are great options, they could be more costly than our list of tips above.
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