Best Renovations to Help Sell Your Home

Start thinking about home renovations long before you consider selling your house

When you know you are going to sell your home, you want to get the most possible money you can from the sale. That process starts weeks, months, and possibly even years in advance of selling the home, as home renovations have proven time and again to boost property value far more than they usually cost. However, you have to balance your budget with what you can actually do, but within these constrictions, you need to choose specific projects that bring the most bang for your buck. Keep reading to learn the best renovations to help sell your home.

If your home has old siding, consider replacing it with fresh vinyl siding.

The average cost of this is around twelve grand. However, when the home is sold, you can expect back around 80 percent of that expense, making it a very profitable renovation to help sell your home. New vinyl siding is often consciously recognized as a highlight feature, and it helps the home with curb appeal.

Before you do replace siding, consider if the old siding needs replacement. Sometimes, a good power washing is all that is really necessary, which is certainly much cheaper and would save your money for something else. If you do go for a replacement, consider your color options carefully. White colors highlight dirt, but a combination of taupe with black shutters conveys a rich and stately look.

Another option that boosts curb appeal but is a lot cheaper than new siding is a new garage door, if yours is street-facing. Expect to spend around $2,300, but also expect to get nearly 90 percent of that value back. Doors with additional windows are quite trendy, and websites that sell garage doors often have a feature where you can upload a photo and see previews online before doing anything.

Inside the home, consider the installation of wood flooring. You might pay out nearly six grand for this, but you get over 90 percent back. Oak is popular, especially in the Northeast. Choose hardwood over any products that are engineered, if you can. Off-gassing and high formaldehyde levels turn off some buyers. If you already have hardwood floors, just get them refinished.

Interestingly enough, some renovations that you might think of as big ticket items in fact do not bring back that much value. That includes kitchen and bathroom renovations. Homeowners like to put their own touch on such rooms, so it’s better to just spruce them up and make them look nice as cheaply as you can rather than sink tens of thousands into redoing them. Your budget is far better spread out over the previously listed renovations. The notable exceptions are turning half baths into full baths, or just adding a bathroom where one did not used to be.

These are the best renovations to help sell your home.

Prospective buyers who visit and tour homes with these features are likely to buy your home faster and for more value than other properties that are not as enhanced.

Why Mortgage Preapproval is Important

A vast majority of home buyers don’t understand the importance of mortgage preapproval when shopping for their dream home. In fact, shopping for your dream home without it is similar to shopping in a supermarket without your wallet. In today’s competitive real estate market, most home buyers tend to shop for their dream home as soon as they fill the mortgage application. They don’t wait until they receive a preapproval from the lender. This is a mistake that should be avoided if you don’t want to be disappointed over time. You will be wasting your valuable time in case the mortgage is disapproved due to whatever reason. This is why it is important that a serious buyer pursues a pre-qualification letter from the lender before shopping for his/her dream home. This article offers information on why getting your mortgage preapproval is crucial when shopping for your dream home on the market.

Most real estate professionals are astonished that they still get offers from clients without the preapproval from the lender. In fact, most real estate agents prefer to reject such offers since it involves a risk of wasting their time in case the mortgage is declined by the lender. The lender will offer your preapproval after verifying all the important details of your credit history.

These details include the credit score, tax returns, income, and bank statements of the client. Most real estate agents will call the lender directly to find out whether the client has the preapproval to shop for a home. This is why you need to get the preapproval letter from your lender before approaching a real estate agent to buy your dream home. Although a preapproval is not really a loan commitment, it helps speed up the loan approval process. Once you have the green light from the lender, it is very rare that the lender will disapprove your mortgage. Hence, a preapproval letter can save the time of both the real estate agent as well as the client.

In conclusion, the vast majority of home buyers do not obtain a preapproval when shopping for their dream home. Real estate agents will insist on obtaining a preapproval letter before shopping for your dream home. It can save you a lot of time.

Buying a Home

There are cracks in the foundation. Nothing structural. Nothing that’s going to threaten the stability of the home, but they’re there. Nooks, crannies and holes through which seeps an invisible threat. Colorless, odorless and undetectable by your average human, it is nonetheless the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States.

Radon gas – even the name sounds ominous, evoking images of radiation and nuclear devastation. Radon gas is created when uranium in the soil decays. The gas then seeps through any access point into a home. Common entry points are cracks in the foundation, poorly sealed pipes, drainage or any other loose point. Once in the home, the gas can collect in certain areas – especially basements and other low-lying, closed areas – and build up over time to dangerous levels. The Environmental Protection Agency of the US Government has set a threshold of 4 pico curies per liter as the safe level. As humans are exposed to the gas over a period of years, it can have a significant and detrimental effect.