In Approval

The outlook for foreseeable future is a little dismal if you’re a property owner – dwindling house prices are making many individuals worry. Some home owners will find themselves in negative equity later this year or next year, if not already. Nonetheless, there are means to avert this issue. The Answer : to add value to your house. How? By making home improvements. Do It Yourself / home improvements can bring far greater value to your property than the effective cost of those improvements.

So where to start? A good place to start is to consider the rooms in your house that you use the least. Maybe it’s a spare bedroom or adjoining garage. Knocking down a wall can turn such a rarely used room into an extended area for a kitchen or living room. Consider also your lighting and plumbing. A dimmer switch can change a bright, garish room into a warm, inviting living space – simply light transforming the room! Possibly your house doesn’t have a downstairs bathroom? Then get one put in where your adjoining garage is – again this can add a great deal of value to your home.

Perhaps your 4 bedroomed house could be changed to 3 bedroom by taking a wall down, and making a much bigger room. This may sound a tad counter-intuitive, but in reality larger rooms will hand you a higher sale value, and rather often people use a 4th bedroom strictly as a storage room (a sign of a room that isn’t really used or needed).

Then look into your garden. Have you got a garden shed? If this answer is no, consider installing one in the garden. Why is this of particular importance? Well, here is one place where you can store all your gear that’s choking up your utility room / spare bedroom / garage. Having a shed helps also with the gardening, and enthusiastic gardeners (read: your prospective house buyer) like a garden with a shed. And get into gardening yourself! If your garden’s been untended, then mow the grass, plant flowers, cut the garden edges. Also consider installing decking. Just providing a beverage to a future buyer out in your pretty garden can really help sell the place – viewers feel comfortable in such surroundings – so your garden is very important to help raise the price of your property and help sell your home.

So where to look for some assistance? You can’t do it all by yourself. Have a look online! A home improvement directory like homeandgardenlistings.co.uk has all kinds of home and garden websites listed there : including a directory of bathroom fitters, directory of builders, directory of plumbers, electricians, directory of general furniture suppliers, directory of bedroom furniture and beds suppliers etc.

These are just some basic tips on increasing the value of your home in these tough times, but and we hope you find these useful.