Here are a few suggestions to help you improve your home’s value when you’re thinking of selling, and save money while you’re doing it.
- Change out light bulbs in your home. Lighting makes a huge difference. If there is more light in your home, it appears to be bigger. Lighting can make a huge difference to a buyer. And changing a light bulb is a lot easier than trying to install an extra window.
Change the light fixtures throughout your house. This is an easy way to update a house. Old light fixtures make a house look aged. By installing new light fixtures throughout your house, the whole place will look newer.
- Clean your house. Having a clean house, gives people the impression that the house is well cared for. Make sure to do deep cleaning. One of the most important things a lot of people don’t do is to clean their windows. By cleaning your windows, you will allow a lot more light into the home, and you will make the home worth a lot more.
- Paint your house. Most of the time, if you do the work yourself, you can paint the interior of your house for under $500. The best time to hire a painter is during the winter. There are a lot of exterior painters out of a job during the winter. They will be more than happy to come in and paint your house for you at a reduced rate.
- Put your junk and a lot of of your furniture in storage. This may sound like a big hassle, but it isn’t very expensive to do, and with most of your furniture gone and out of the way, the house will look bigger. The last thing you want to do is have a house that looks small and cluttered. By putting extra items and extra furniture in storage, you can really make the house look bigger.
- Make sure your kitchen and bathroom are spotless. This is one area of the home people like to have clean. That usually means you have to do some pretty deep cleaning. This means cleaning the things you don’t normally do like cleaning the oven, the fridge, and the tile grout.
- Make sure the lawn is looking its best. It doesn’t cost all that much to put fertilizer on your lawn and improve the way it looks. Also, for less than $40, you can usually rent a lawn aerator and aerate your lawn. When you aerate and fertilizer lawn at the same time, it can make a huge difference.
Even small things like fertilizing, aerating, and mowing can do a lot to improve the overall beauty of your landscaping. According to a lot of real estate brokers, having nice landscaping can add as much as 15% to the value of your home when you go to sell it. Lawns that are beautiful and well maintained signify to the potential buyer that the house has also been well maintained. Curb appeal goes a long way. Even without walking through the front door, a buyer can usually tell what condition the house will be in based on the condition of the lawn.
In these tough times, “Do-It-Yourself” is a tempting way to go for many homeowners looking to save a few dollars on anything from dripping faucet to running toilets.
The savings can add up in a hurry when you don’t have to call a repairman, especially for things like painting, plumbing and appliance repair.
There are some home repairs, of course, that an unskilled homeowner should avoid, among them situations where having heavy equipment makes the job go much better, especially outdoors.
Many household repairs and projects can be tackled by a do-it-yourselfer who takes the time to learn what’s required. The Internet is great for learning what to do and how to do it.
When taking on a project, begin by finding out where in your home you turn off the water and gas, and how the circuit breakers work. If you need a professional to show you, hire one.
Some of the jobs a do-it-yourselfer can learn include repairing drywall, replacing a deadbolt, or installing a new light fixture or ceiling fan.
Good rule of thumb: Avoid jobs where you could injure yourself or damage property. Other than that, do your homework, and go for it. Happy repairs!
Homeowners need to be proactive in making energy-efficient home renovations. Here is a list of easy check-ups every homeowner can do to optimize the energy efficiency of their home:
Windows and Doors
Holes in windows and doors allow conditioned air to leak from your home and allow outdoor air to infiltrate, which can tax your heating and cooling systems and raise your energy bills. Caulk around windows and doors where there are gaps. Also caulk areas where plumbing lines or electrical wiring extend to the exterior of the home.
Floor and Wall Insulation
Insulation acts as a barrier to heat movement and helps keep any home cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter—all while using less energy. Making sure insulation is used at potential gaps such as around an attic stairway or over the attic access door is important as well.
Shedding a Little Light on a Simple Solution
By replacing traditional incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents, you can use up to 75% less energy on lighting alone. A wide assortment of CFLs is now available for almost any type fixture found in a home.
Appliances and HVAC Systems
Your major household appliances are a good place to focus on to make your home more eco-friendly. Start by changing the filters of your HVAC systems regularly and consider upgrading older appliances to take advantage of newer, more efficient designs.
Buy a Programmable Thermostat
This energy-saving step can have a positive and noticeable impact right away. Programmable thermostats are fairly easy to install and once they are set up a homeowner can adjust them as the weather changes. For every degree that a thermostat is set back, you may realize a savings between 1-3% on your heating or cooling bills.
Here’s a cheap and quick way to save money and energy.
Stopping drafts is an easy way to reduce your heating bill in winter. If you own your home you’ll probably want to add weatherstripping as a permanent solution, but if you’re renting or low on funds you can re-purpose a 6ft length of pipe insulation available for $1-1.50 at any big box home improvement store into two door draft guards.
The only disadvantage is that the pipe insulation cannot be used on windows unlike the Door Draft Guard.
When it comes to bang-for-your buck home improvement projects, there are few that top making your home more energy efficient.
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