If you’re planning on eventually selling your home, you’ll probably have to do some repairs or renovation to attract potential buyers.
Nothing sells harder than a home that has visible damage, no matter how beautiful it may have been decades ago.
This is exactly why home improvement is crucial to making a sale one day, but people sometimes go a bit overboard with the detailing and nitpicking, and we’re here to save you from making the same mistake.
You’re not trying to turn your home into a 5-star resort, but rather, a comfortable and homely living arrangement, meaning that you should do the least work possible to make the property look presentable when you’re trying to sell it.
There’s also no point in overdoing it to the point where it’s no longer profitable for you to sell the home, so take some advice from us and just take it easy with the repairs.
Avoid fancy flooring
A hardwood floor can really bring out a home’s beauty, but it may not always be the right choice, especially if you’re not planning on living in that house forever.
The fact is, floor installations can be difficult to deal with, especially if you run into a buyer that doesn’t like it solely for the wooden flooring that may or may not have gone out of style.
At this point, you’ll be contemplating how to remove the flooring that you already paid thousands to have installed, and you may be surprised to find out that it could easily cost just as much to have it removed.
No matter how you look at it, it’s a one-way ticket for Disasterville; population: your wallet.
Despite this, there are still options to make your home’s floor look presentable, and oftentimes, the better solution is actually the cheaper one, which is the case with vinyl or laminate flooring, both of which are installed with ease.
That’s not to mention that it practically looks the same as hardwood to the untrained eye, and even if the buyer doesn’t like it, removing it is a piece of cake.
Luxury bathrooms
We all love relaxing in a luxurious bathtub after a long day at work, but sometimes, the investment you’d have to make for something like that far outweighs the benefits of it.
It’s already widely accepted that renovation doesn’t do much for the property’s overall value, and it serves solely as a means of attracting potential buyers.
If someone’s willing to buy your home, they’re probably willing to do some finishing touches of their own, meaning that spending thousands on a bathroom renovation feels like a waste.
Instead, you could dedicate some money to repairing other issues in the bathroom, only to the point where it looks clean, fresh, and presentable, and the first thing to start with would be repairing any broken or stained tiles.
If the grout between the tiles had become stained or moldy, brushing it won’t do much in the long run, and it may be for the best to have all the tiles regrouted, for presentability’s sake.
A bathroom’s purpose is to be functional and clean, not luxurious and fancy, and once you’ve understood this, you’ll be well on your way to selling your first home.
Overengineering the landscape
The landscape around your home is the first thing any potential buyer sees when arriving at the property, but this doesn’t mean you should go overboard with the lawn decorations.
Rare plants and advanced water canals can be interesting and are certainly what’ll make your property stand out among the rest, but at the end of the day, they’re not what’s going to be selling your home.
In fact, most buyers will end up feeling intimidated by the potential maintenance costs that come with so many bells and whistles on the property’s landscape.
Instead, what you should be focusing on is just keeping the grass freshly cut with some minimal flower arrangements scattered through the yard, remember, nothing too much, as long as it’s tasteful.
You can also hire a gardener to do all of this work for you, and it may still cost you less than the complex work some people tend to do in order to try and hike up the property’s selling price.
No matter how you look at it, it’s simply not worth it, and the sooner you understand that the sooner you’ll be beating your competition on the market.
A pool isn’t worth it
Finally, we’ve reached the ultimate “don’t” of property renovation, that being the installation of a pool, which is tied to the common misconception that everyone would want to have one in their backyard.
Sure, cooling down after a hot day in the summer is wonderful, and if you pair it up with not having to take a trip to the beach things can only sound better, but in reality, it’s a liability that not many families are willing to put up with.
People tend to believe that installing a pool will help increase their property value by up to 7%, but the harsh truth is that it sometimes even decreases it, especially nowadays when you’ve got a fresh generation of millennials buying their first homes and trying to settle down with a child.
No one wants to constantly worry about their child accidentally falling into a pool, and the maintenance costs are no joke either, so maybe just steer clear of pool installation for now.