With home prices currently in the gutter, finding ways to boost your home value on the cheap can be a real challenge. After all, if your home is worth half what you paid for it, there's hardly any point to trying to sell at all. Sometimes, you just have to take the loss and then do your best to find a house in the area where you want to live that has seen just as much of a decrease in value so you can cut your losses. For the time being, getting that old place in shape to maximize your resale value with minimal cost outlay is the best way to ensure that you get the absolute most for your home that you possibly can.
Plant Things
Buyers love finished landscaping, but there's more to a landscape than just flowers. A trip through your local garden center should tell you just how expensive it can be to flower up your landscape. Additionally, you almost have to be a professional with a degree in botany to understand how to make a garden attractive for all seasons, particularly if you need to do it inexpensively. Fortunately, the operative word there is “almost.” Once you've bought one plant, propagating them (which simply means creating more from the one plant,) is relatively easy and free. Pay close attention to how to split bulbs and use the seeds that grow naturally from your existing plants, and you can build a full landscape, flowers and all in just a season or two.
Trees can be a great way to add lots of value to your property, while costing little more than a few dollars' worth of nuts. Of course, they do take more time to grow, so you'll have to put on your salesman's hat, but it is possible with the right buyer. There are three options with trees that you can go with. The first is fruit trees. These trees appeal to the kind of buyer who likes to cook, to can their own jellies, and other such activities. Label each of the trees, ensuring that you have two of each variety to ensure cross-pollination. Next, nut trees. In the regions in which nut trees grow, they tend to be not just popular trees for those lots that have them, but also popular places for neighborhood nut-pilferers to hang out. In the south, it's pecan and walnut trees that get all the attention, but there are a number of varieties that grow in many regions, if not as well as in their specific regions. Walnuts, Filberts, Pine nuts, Hickory, Chestnut and persimmon all have uses that make the trees valuable to those who choose to take advantage of them.
Of particular interest to speculators are hardwood trees. Oak, Walnut, Maple and Ash join numerous others in being extremely valuable when they reach their full height. In fact, some lumber companies are willing to pay premium prices for trees that are properly grown and propagated to help avoid the presence of knots in the lumber, or sometimes to encourage the presence of knurles, from which decorative furniture is often made. You might recognize knurled lumber from the dashboard of Rolls-Royce automobiles. The material is very rare, and very expensive. Sure, the right buyer has to be found, and then they'll have to wait as long as 30 years for their investment to bear fruit, but that's what your salesmanship is for, now isn't it?
Perfection Within
Another key to getting the most out of your home when you sell is perfecting the existing architecture. While this may sound like a big deal, it really isn't. All it involves is looking critically at the things in your home that don't bug you much, and then fixing them as though a perfectionist were calling the shots. Make sure the paint is tidy, the carpet clean, and everything generally ship-shape. With this done, you'll find your home on the market for less time, and you may be able to offset some of your losses, as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment