Deciding to renovate before listing your home can be a challenge. It’s tough to know what will or will not return results. Here is a list of things that will NOT increase the value of your home.
1) Extensive Professional Landscaping
You can build an entire amusement park in your back yard, and it won’t bring you big bucks upon resale. If you want to put in a waterfall, coupled with a flowing river dumping into a Koi pond, for example, do it because you enjoy the water feature, not because you’re hoping to recoup the investment. Landscaping choices are a personal preference, and all the hand-crafted bridges and unique pergolas in the world won’t dramatically boost your bottom line.
2) New Roof, Gutters, Sprinklers or HVAC
There are certainly buyers in the marketplace who appreciate a home that features a brand new furnace, but they won’t pay extra for the home because the furnace has been replaced.
Ditto regarding a new roof; replacing a roof that is past its life expectancy is considered a maintenance issue. It’s like expecting to get paid more because you swept off the front steps.
3) Swimming Pool and / or Personal Spa
The TV commercials for water-related improvements make it seem like non-stop frolicking among kids in the pool or late-evening soirées in the spa sipping adult beverages, but the cost and expense of installing a pool or spa does not find its way back into your pocket. If you want to put in a pool or spa, do it because you will enjoy it.
4) Painting Your House
Although painting is the single most cost-effective improvement you can make before selling your home, it won’t return any bang for your buck unless you do the painting yourself.
Painting the exterior or interior of the home does though make it more saleable.
5) Solar Panels Unfortunately solar panels will not improve the value of your home and add to your bottom-line profit. You do not get much if any additional value for solar panel installation. On top of this, if you have financed the solar panels, you probably can’t sell the home without paying the balance at closing, something that the solar panel company may not have disclosed
