One of the biggest common misconceptions when it comes to your home is that all improvements will give you the value back and then some.

This is TOTALLY untrue.

I’ve met with homeowners that believe their home is worth $4,000 more than the others because they just replaced the air conditioner. No, your home is worth exactly as much as the others because it now has a working air conditioner. You’ve simply brought it up to par. Nobody would buy it at all when it wasn’t working and the only reason you replaced it is because it was broken or near broken.

It’s ridiculous to think I would get $6,000 more for my used car because the engine blew up and I spent $6,000 on a new one. No, now it’s worth the same as everyone else’s working car of similar specs.

If you spend $5,500 to put a beautiful deck on the back of your home, of course that increases the marketability and it increases the desirability. But that doesn’t mean you’ll get an additional $5,500 for the home. You won’t in most cases.

To be clear, you may get a little bit more money for the house, but you’ll also be getting your own enjoyment while you are living there.

I recently read a story about an owner that spent $13,000 for a privacy fence in his huge backyard and he was shocked to learn when he sold the next Summer that the home would be MUCH more desirable than the others, but he will only get an additional $5,000 for the home based on the beautiful fenced yard.

When you replace a roof or a hot water tank or any other mechanicals in a home, of course that’s an outstanding improvement. They would choose your home over those that have NOT done that improvement. But the fact is, you didn’t replace it to increase the value. You replaced it because the last one was bad, meaning the home was in ill repair. Yes, the buyers would choose yours, but they wouldn’t pay you dollar for dollar as to what you’ve invested.

On the flip side of that coin, most generally you’ll find that nearly ALL cosmetic or minor repairs will pay back huge dividends and may actually pay you back a multiple of what you’ve invested.

You already know that fresh paint and carpet goes a LONG way in creating more value within the home. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one case where they didn’t get their investment back in terms of price and marketability.

The same is usually true for countertops, window repairs, punch-out items and many other minor issues. That’s why we often recommend a pre-market home inspection so you can knock out any minor issues to avoid scaring off the buyer when they have their inspections done.

Be sure you get with me on any improvements so that you can have a bit of professional advice before you pull the trigger on the project. There are two things to look at. One is resale value and the other is your own enjoyment of those items which is really your main goal to begin with, even if you won’t get your investment back. But remember, there are several things you can do to INCREASE the value and get a multiple of what you’ve invested in repairs or upgrades.

You probably have a friend or two that’s working on some upgrades or repairs inside their home this month. It’s very common for us to want to improve the area in which our family lives. Everything from carpet to hardwood to fresh paint and sometimes even room additions or kitchen upgrades.

Many times, these small little additions can make it feel like a new home and can really brighten up the mood each time you walk into the room.

From a real estate value perspective, these upgrades can also increase your equity in the property if done correctly. As you push up the value of your home and make it more marketable, you not only get to enjoy it while you live there, but may also sell it for more money when the time comes to move.

It’s common to fix up the inside, but far too often, I see that people forget about the outside of the home. When you look at this from a resale perspective, you quickly notice that all home buyers shop online and they are generally choosing homes to look at or completely skip altogether simply based on the curb appeal. The picture is EVERYTHING so that front photo really matters.

With you and your family living in the home day to day, it can be a pretty good feeling to just paint the front door a different color or add a little bit of landscaping around the entrance. It gives you a fresh feel each time you come home and it helps you in enjoying the pride of homeownership.

As far as overall home value is concerned, the exterior can mean as much or more than the interior. Since marketability is a key factor in real estate, you want to make sure the curb appeal attracts as many people as possible. If you’ve casually browsed homes for sale online, you’ve undoubtedly skipped the ones with a bad looking front picture while you showed interest in those with a gorgeous snapshot of the front.

When the grass is green, the paint is fresh, the roof looks nice and the landscaping accentuates the home, there is something magnetically attractive about the property. And as you know, more interest in a home can mean more money!

All of my clients deserve to have as much equity as they can possibly create within their home. Even if you have no intentions of EVER making a move, it’s nice to know that your net worth is increased and you have something more valuable for whenever you decide to sell the place or hand it down to a loved one.

Coupling that with the fact that you get more enjoyment out of the property with some fresh digs, it makes home improvements (even basic cosmetics) a fun project to consider.

One key factor to remember is that these repairs, upgrades or improvements should all look professionally done. Nothing is worse than poor work in home repairs. It can be fun to take on a do-it-yourself project but most generally, you are better off getting a few quotes from professionals and getting it done by them. You can sit back and relax while the manual labor is dedicated to someone that loves their craft!