Top 4 Home investments that aren't going to help you sell your home
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If you're putting your home on the market, you've probably thought about what you should do to your home to ensure that you get lots and lots of prospective buyers flooding in, and lots of interest once people have seen your home.
When deciding what to improve on your home, the key thing to look out for is Return on Investment. Any upgrades that you make to your home need to be certain to give you a return - either helping you sell your home in a competitive market, or helping you to get a higher price that initially valued at.
Most real estate agents, home buyers and property experts agree that there are a few things that usually score points - new kitchen countertops, fresh coat of paint, energy-saving improvements like solar PV systems or solar hot water, and bathroom renovations or refinishing. Here's a comprehensive list of what investments really do make a difference in the Australian property market.
Here's some common mistakes to avoid when thinking about upgrades before selling your home.
Going OTT (Over the Top)
Elaborate renovations are all well and good, but keep in mind that your renovations need to keep pace with the other homes in your neighbourhood. If your house is the mansion on a street of California bungalows, you'll find it hard to justify why someone should pay $100 000 and up more than their prospective neighbours. Your improvements should be made based specifically on your marketplace - being right at the top of the pile (the most expensive house) is daunting for buyers, and you're not likely to get as high a return on your investment, even if you do manage to get a return.
Putting in a swimming pool or spa
Especially in Australia, features that use extra water and require extra maintenance are often not selling points. At Service Central we get about as many job requests for filling swimming pools in as we get for putting new swimming pools in. A swimming pool or spa is an investment in your lifestyle, but it's a personal choice that not every home buyer wants to make. Often buyers factor the projected cost of maintenance or the cost of filling the pool in into the price they're willing to pay for the home. Pools and spas are also a deterrent for families with young children, so you're cutting out a key segment of your customers ie families with young children.
Being too unique and fashionable
Design choices like bold colours, ornate gates, murals on the ceiling and shiny gold tap fittings in an all black bathroom are great - if you choose them. It's sad to say that unique decor choices are not a positive attribute when you're selling your home - because you segment your potential buyers like Marmite. Either you'll love the choice or hate the choice, but you'll feel pretty strongly either way. What you're going for is to appeal to the most people possible, and then have subtle features that swing people to choose your house without polarising people against it.
Neutral colours work best in terms of decor, so before you put your home on the market try to tone down the uniqueness of your design choices by perhaps a new coat of off-white paint and reviewing the mural on the ceiling. Of course, larger choices that are more expensive to change should be replaced with caution.
Renovating features out
Converting your garage into a games room can add value - to the people who want a games room. But to the people who want a garage, it's a downside. Try to think practically about this - if your neighbourhood homes usually have this feature, it's probably because it's well used by the people who want to live here. Look at things like transport links and lifestyles of people who are attracted to the neighbourhood - is it close to the city with lots of young professional commuters or further out and more suburban, appealing to larger families who might spend more time at home (and have cars to protect).
The main point is to research your feature changes before you do them.
Your real estate agent can be helpful here in terms of understanding what people usually like in the neighbourhood - remember that they talk to lots of buyers on a regular basis.
Remember also that there are lots of people looking to buy houses that aren't perfect, because they want the home at a lower price and to do any tweaks themselves. This is also a good thing to check with your real estate agent before proceeding with renovations - if they're seeing lots of owner builders and would-be renovators flocking through their doors, you might be better off negotiating any renovations after you've gotten some interested parties.
If you've done your homework and want to have some renovations done, why not post a job to get free quotes today. Or, search our directory of quality trades businesses here.
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