blue and gray concrete house with attic during twilight

What Makes Your Home Worth Investing In?

If you are working on making your home sale as profitable as possible, there are several ways in which you might want to try and do that. The truth is that it’s always possible to make a home more appealing to buyers, and as long as you are thinking about your home sale from this perspective, you will find that the decisions you make are much more likely to help towards that end.

Remember to think, and view your home from the point of view of the buyer, because the question they’re asking themselves is: What makes this home worth investing in?

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In this post, we are going to discuss some of the things that make a home worth investing in. So if you are trying to make your home more attractive to potential buyers and investors, all of the following factors are probably going to help in one way or another. Let’s take a look.

Uncluttered But Not Too Plain

Something that people often think is that they need to strip a home of all its personality in order to put it on the market. But this is really one of those occasions where a half-truth has been warped somewhat. In fact, it is true to say there is something to making your home a little plainer if you are hoping to sell it, because that means that people find it easier to imagine themselves living there. But you still want to make sure that the home has a decent amount of personality too, and that is something that you should definitely not overlook.

So, it’s a case of making it a little plain, but not too much. You might find it beneficial to keep the colors neutral, to opt for pastel wallpaper and so on, but still make it look like someone real actually lives there. This is the best way to find that balance, and you will find that you gain much more traction from potential buyers this way.

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Adding Extensions

One sure thing that you can do to improve the value of a home and make it much more investable is to add an extension to it. With a small home in a good area, increasing your square footage is often going to be a very powerful way of making your home so much more valuable, and you might be surprised at just how well this can actually work. If you want to do this, however, you will find that it is useful to think carefully about which kinds of additions are worth investing in, because they are not all alike.

In fact, certain extensions tend to have a much higher ROI potential than other ones. For instance, loft conversions are generally an example of this, though they are not additions in the strictest sense of the word. Additions that don’t involve expanding the existing footprint of the home would be the most cost effective.

Alternatively, you may want to consider an extension upward, adding another story to the home. We see this here in Florida in some beach areas where expanding upward increases the living space and also beach view. However, additions such as this are more costly and challenging to get planning permission for. If you can do that, however, it’s going to add a lot of value all in all.

In general, it’s certainly true that having larger square footage will make your property more attractive to potential buyers. Just be sure to balance that with the time and expense involved in achieving it, so that you are making a valuable improvement rather than incurring more debt unnecessarily.

A Good Location

Obviously, this isn’t something you can change at this point, but it is still good to think about when you are trying to sell your home. That way, you can try and work around potential objections or concerns, or highlight upcoming features or new schools or shopping areas or highways, etc. The better the location is around your home, the more valuable it is going to be. There are actually quite a few things that you might want to bear in mind when it comes to the location of the property.

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For one thing, it’s more to do with what amenities are available in the local area than anything else. If there are plenty of shops, schools, hospitals, and so on, that can help a lot. Access to green spaces is also useful here, as is the option for links to public transportation. So those are things that you might want to try and make the most of when you are advertising your home. This way buyers will see what great amenities they’re investing in.

Of course, crime rates and other such factors matter too, and you will need to make sure that you are aware of those things as well. As you can see, location really does matter.

DIY Projects to Update your Home

Before placing your home on the market, also think about whether your home could use a little updating. You may not want to undertake a full blown renovation, but DIY projects can go a long way toward making your home more appealing.

Take time to view the other homes for sale in your area, see how they look and how upgraded they are. And make sure to look through the many DIY projects I’ve undertaken here on my site, along with the step by step guides and tutorials.

Here are some before and after photos and projects to inspire you:

Bathroom renovation (weekend project)
4 Amazing Kitchen Cabinet Makeovers
A condo renovation start to finish

If you’re going be investing in some home renovating before selling, be sure to check out my downloadable renovation organizer, to help keep you on time and on budget.

renovation organizer
About the author
marciasocas
HI! I'm the Broker of Castro Realty Group, a real estate company I've owned since 2001. I love all things home related, including real estate, renovations, home flipping, home décor, and crafts.

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