7 Things That Don’t Increase the Value of Your Home

There are certain upgrades you can make to your home that may improve your living situation but will not improve the home’s value.

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We talk a lot about what does help the value of your home, but here are seven things that do not help the value of your home:

1. Extensive professional landscaping. There’s a difference between getting your home’s landscaping up to snuff for a future sale and doing extensive rock walls and water features. You will not see that money back when you sell your home.
2. Upgrading electrical or plumbing in an old home. While this might have great value to those who live there and improve the overall cost of ownership by making these upgrades, you won’t see this money back in an appraisal.
3. New home necessities. Having a new roof, gutters, HVAC system, etc. can be a plus for a buyer, but they won’t necessarily give you extra value for those items.



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You will almost never see extra money in an offer for a pool.

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4. Swimming pools and personal spas. You will pretty much never see extra money in an offer for a pool, especially here in Utah where our climate only allows for the use of a pool for three to four months out of the year.
5. Making dated improvements. You don’t want to update your home with brass fixtures, even if they may be to your taste. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you don’t want to do anything too trendy either.  
6. Painting your home. Your home does need to be painted from time to time, but you’re not going to get all your money back from any paint job.
7. Solar panels. Although this is a nice, earth-friendly thing to do, we haven’t seen solar panels increase value on homes or make any impact on appraisals here in Utah.

If you have any questions about these tips, don’t hesitate to give me a call or shoot me an email. I’d love to talk further with you.

5 Home Selling Regrets and How to Avoid Them

What are some of the biggest regrets that homeowners have when selling a house? Today I'm discussing the five most common regrets I see, and how you can avoid them.
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Today I wanted to talk about the biggest real-life regrets that home sellers have.

1. Not preparing the home before going on the market. When we as Realtors get in the picture, we're excited to get the home on the market and get going to sell the home as quickly as possible to maximize the dollar for the seller. Sometimes, though, Realtors aren't the best at helping sellers pump the brakes and realize that the home isn't ready for the market. In the last few years, we've found that as buyers scroll through homes online, if the home doesn't have pictures that are lit well and professionally done, they become disinterested, even if it's the deal of the century. Having the home look right and present well online is crucial, so you have to do some back end work.
2. Trying to sell without an agent. There are so many different ways I could prove that, with the biggest being when it hits your pocket as a seller. You don't net as much money as you could by hiring an agent.




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When dealing with multiple offers, don't just look at the dollar amount.

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3. Skipping the staging. Like I mentioned with photos, staging is crucial. Thanks to HGTV, we all expect homes to look like model homes as buyers when we look online. Getting your home as close to that as possible will help maximize your dollar.  
4. Jumping at the first offer. The first offer can sometimes come from an over-reactive buyer. Many times, these buyers aren't prepared or qualified to buy a home. They aren't as knowledgeable, so as quickly as they over-offer on your house, they can back out and walk away, too. Having an experienced agent to guide you through the offers is important.
5. Picking a buyer based on money only. We've been dealing with multiple offers a lot this summer in the Salt Lake City area. When you have multiple offers, you tend to want to only look at the highest dollar net. The highest net offer isn't always your strongest buyer, however, and I have seen a lot more deals fall through this year due to flaky and unqualified buyers compared to recent years. You want to vet those offers and the qualifications of the buyer.

Hopefully this topic was helpful for you. If you have any more questions, I'd love to sit down and chat with you. Give me a call or send me an email and let's continue this conversation soon!