Top tips on how to add value to your home

THE current political and economic turmoil in the UK may have slowed the housing market in recent months, but the personal life circumstances of homeowners will always involve change due to births, deaths, marriage, divorce, work-relocation, and retirement.

At such pivotal points in life, people may consider preparing their home for sale, but what features will help to sell it faster, or indeed, reduce its value in a competitive marketplace?

According to property maintenance solution provider Help me Fix, what was once considered a desirable and prestigious addition to a home may now be considered less covetable.

A home cinema, for example, once considered an acquisition of the very wealthy, at a cost of £15,000 to install, may actually reduce your overall sale income by £12,337.

Replacing a bath with a standalone shower in the family bathroom at a cost of £2,765 could reduce the value of a home by two per cent, while loft conversions, so popular in previous years are expensive, costing around £37,500, and may still result in a £5,542 reduction in sale profit, even taking into consideration a 10.8 per cent value added to the property price.

Wine cellars are no longer considered a good investment, costing around £35,000 to install while adding only 10 per cent to the value, resulting in a loss of £5,410 in sale profit.

Landscaped gardens, at a cost of £3,750, can boost the value of your property by 1.2 per cent but reduce sale profit by £199.

However, improvements which are considered a better investment include a garage conversion, which can increase sale profit by £15,840, a garden office and the creation of an open-plan living space.

Even a change of light fittings and a coat of paint where needed can have a major impact on the overall feel of the property without breaking the bank.

According to UK Home Improvement, revamping the kitchen can add as much as five per cent to the value and a conservatory could add between five and seven percent. Adding central heating is a plus too, adding around £5,000 to the overall value of your home.

Turning a front garden into a parking space and adding a dropped kerb could increase values by an astonishing £50,000 in areas where parking spaces are limited.

But even just tidying the garden and adding new plants, cleaning up the exterior to make it ‘smile’ during viewings can help to boost the chances of a faster sale.

Ettan Bazil, CEO and Founder of Help me Fix cautions that many people don’t account for the initial cost of completing the improvement and measure it against the value added to the home.

Mr Bazil said: “If the former outweighs the latter, your home will certainly sell for more, but your personal profit will still be reduced.”

Therefore, major home improvements prior to putting the property on the market are not always the best idea.

Mr Bazil suggests that smaller improvements such as a new boiler, fixed roof or double-glazing will prove to be better long-term investments, as well as putting less immediate strain on householders’ finances.

In the current market, when considering improvements prior to the sale of a property, ‘playing it safe’ is the sound advice from the experts.