Whether you have a budget to blow or are hoping to make some value-adding home improvements on a shoestring, here are five top ways to do exactly that, whilst also adding value to your property.
A Loft Conversion
According to Nationwide, converting a loft space into an additional room can add a staggering up to 23% to your home’s overall value. Reiterated, this would mean that investing in a loft conversion could see the value of your property rise within a matter of weeks by ‘almost a quarter’.
Further, a loft conversion is a particularly realistic means of adding value to a property which cannot be extended due to insufficient land or having been denied planning permission. Because most often these two realities are faced by home owners living in areas where space is at a premium, a loft conversion is often the ideal means of making the most of what your property already has. Plus, a loft conversion often costs far less than creating a bricks and mortar extension and is easier to get permission from your local council to undertake.
A Second Bathroom or En-Suite
If your family bathroom is located downstairs, it is almost certainly worth speaking with the experts to try and devise a means of relocating it upstairs. For those benefitting from an upstairs family bathroom though, it is still well worth exploring whether an additional downstairs WC or en-suite might be options. After all, with bathroom suites being purchasable in 2016 for as little as £2,000 depending how handy you willing to be and second bathrooms often adding at least 5% onto the overall value of a property, this is a trick many home owners are missing out on, not to mention a convenience many are unnecessarily living without.
A Garage Conversion
If you own a property with a private drive or means of off-road parking aside from the garage, it is well worth considering converting your garage into an additional room. Doing so can add value to a property not simply because it increases the floor space of a property or provides those living within it with the luxury of another room, but too because it saves anybody buying a property from having to face renovating a garage themselves.
Separate garages can even sometimes be converted into entire self-contained and second properties, annexes or ‘granny flats’ which can see the value of your property sky rocket. Hence, it is worth speaking with a builder or construction company about the potential your garage might have. To avoid being conned or sweet talked by rogue trades persons, you might first want to give the article: Avoid Becoming the Victim of Rogue Tradesmen, published via the Property Scene website.
Planning Permission
If you have never considered extending your property, or have but have never had the funds with which to realise your extension ideas, that is no reason not to at least consider applying for the planning permission to do exactly that. Securing planning permission saves any would-be buyers doing so themselves that adds value to your property sale price; the time, effort and stress perceived to be involved in attaining successful planning permission is a task no family or property investor wants to have to face. After all, time is money.
Properties that are sold already affixed with planning permission almost always sell for more than those without. Investors, especially, work to strict budgets and timeframes in order to garner their living, hence they stand to make far more themselves for a property that is sold with planning permission than those without
A Modern Kitchen
Often we fall into the trap of thinking that we are actually saving money by making do with our current kitchen. In fact, the reality might be that investing in a new kitchen could see the value of your home rise. So, if your kitchen is dated, has been going for over ten years now or is beginning to suffer under daily wear and tear, it is at least worth looking into the price of a new, modern kitchen and how you might be able to reconfigure the space you have to make it more efficient in 2016.
Meanwhile, those who literally cannot afford to have an entirely new kitchen fitted can still potentially add value to their property by simply sprucing up what is already there. A simple and inexpensive lick of paint, new cupboard and drawer doors and getting on top of all of those DIY to-do bits and bobs such as fixing broken hinges and replacing old, tired flooring can all together give an old kitchen a whole new lease of life, which can too positively affect the value of your home.
