Home maintenance is not only important when getting ready to sell your home, but is important to maintain your home’s value and condition on a day-to-day basis. Regular home maintenance will help you in the resale of your home, it can make a difference in how your buyer views the home, and how your appraiser treats the home in relation to the economic age. But, resale isn’t the first thing on everybody’s mind today, right?
What it comes down to is really the age-old advice of Benjamin Franklin, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” If you take care of your home little by little all of the time, you will reap the prevention of many larger problems, whether it is future problems for YOU, or future problems for getting your home sold, still translating to future problems for YOU.
Protecting the value of your home can help you in many different areas:
- Curb appeal…your yard, landscaping, and exterior are the first things people notice as they drive up to your home. Everyone knows that you only get one chance to make a first impression, so keep in mind the importance of those flower beds, a well manicured yard, and trimmed bushes.
- Updating your lighting…new light fixtures are not really that costly and can make a world of difference in how your home looks and feels, it can give you a more updated appearance, and also can create more light, which can make a room appear bigger.
- Kitchen facelifts…the kitchen is often one of the most important features of the home for a buyer (probably a kind of silly concept in a day and age when many people don’t hardly even cook at home, but still a true story!). This also means it is an important room for guess who? YOU! Make it a room you can enjoy and be proud of WHILE YOU live in the home, not just another project for your Realtor to suggest if you put your home on the market. For many, a new kitchen is not an easy item to obtain, but what about replacing old faucets, updated cabinet pulls and handles, or just putting in matching appliances? All of these items are less costly than a new kitchen, yet help your room to feel more updated and unified. If you have a little more time or money, have the cabinets refaced or have new counter tops installed. Both of these options pay off a ton in value and in appeal! I have seen sellers do a few of these updates and then wonder why they even wanted to sell!
- Bathrooms…another room that matters! There are lots of less costly ways to make your bathroom seem more updated, like making sure you keep up on caulking since that can go from being a 30 minute project to being a total renovation if you procrastinate. You can easily update floors, shower surrounds, replace chipped tiles, or there are many solutions for making an ugly bathtub look better. Even something as simple as a new toilet seat and fresh paint can make a big difference!
- Carpets…maybe you dream of all new perfectly matching and stylish carpet, but in the real world, your children or pets will just mess it up anyway right? You can always start with having your carpets professionally cleaned, which can make a tremendous difference in how your carpets look and smell! (If you are thinking of selling you should always remember, you can’t sell it if you can smell it!) If your carpet is a little worn, or you don’t love the color, sometimes you can use an area rug to give it a boost and make a room feel cleaner or create a more welcoming atmosphere.
- Your neighborhood…have you ever had a vacant house in your neighborhood and it looked awful every evening when you came home from work? OR, even worse have you tried to sell your house with this same problem? Vacant homes in your neighborhood can give you a poor outlook while living there, but can be even more of an issue for a potential Buyer. So, help your outlook, and be a neighbor, see if you and some other neighbors can get together to at least keep up the part of the property everyone looks at. If everyone shares the project it would make the neighborhood look better, and you could know you did something to help your neighbors as well!
I have found several home maintenance checklists that remind you to check on little things that are easy to ignore, feel free to shoot me an e-mail or send me a Facebook message if you would like a copy! I know I’m putting them in my to do list!