Buying a home is one of the biggest investments you will make in your life. If you are making plans for your financial future and retirement, investing money in your home can yield huge returns – if you make the right upgrades. Here are some of the best value home renovations you can make with your money to help secure your retirement and the financial future of your family.
Improve Insulation And Energy Efficiency
For a simple and quick home upgrade, consider adding modern insulation and UPVC windows to your home. It only takes a day or two for these excellent and cost-effective home improvements to be installed, and you will notice the difference they make right away. Not only do these upgrades save you money on your energy bills, but they also add desirability and value to your property.
Check out this guide to UPVC windows from the Federation of Master Builders to find out more about their energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness. This type of window retains heat in the home, reducing the amount of energy you need to use to keep your home warm. UPVC windows cost very little to buy and install, and the savings they make on your bills help them to pay for themselves very quickly.
Add Space To Add Value
The amount of usable and livable space in a home has the biggest impact on its value. Adding an extension to your property, giving your home extra bedrooms and living spaces, is one of the best investments you can make. If an extension sounds like too big of a job, think about converting your attic or basement to add an extra bedroom or two.
If you have space around your home, consider adding Additional Dwelling Units or ADUs. These are free-standing, self-sufficient spaces that can be used by guests, teenagers, or older children as their own living spaces. You can even rent them out for extra income if you want to, on a long-term basis, or as an Airbnb property.
Freshen Up The Front Of Your Home
For the best return on investment, increase your home’s curb appeal. There is a limit to how much you can do and how much you can spend. A little extra money can go a long way in this area. Spruce up your front door, front yard, and brickwork or sidings. This makes your home more attractive to potential buyers in the future and increases its value.
It doesn’t cost much to do, and the results can be amazing. Add color and texture with plants and blooming flowers. Clean up and repair any paths or driveways. Try to incorporate a color scheme pairing your windowsills and door frames with the same colors, and use flowers to accent the theme. Simply cleaning and scrubbing brickwork and paths can have a massive visual impact, despite being completed in an afternoon.
Create Smart Storage Solutions
Storage in the home is always at a premium, especially in a busy family home with children. Assess your spaces and look for opportunities to add smart storage solutions that can make your home life easier and declutter your living spaces. The area beneath your stairs is the perfect example. The cupboard or closet under your stairwell may look like a handy storage spot on the face of it. However, with some simple improvements, you can maximize the available storage this closet can provide.
Deep drawers can be custom-made to fill the space and give you more storage. You can use the area to hold winter clothes, seasonal equipment, or keepsakes. Take a weekend to fix up your garage or outbuildings so you can store more there and reduce the clutter in your home. Your living spaces will be more organized, and the in-built storage will make your home more desirable to buyers in the future.
Make A Modern Multi-Use Space
More and more people are now working remotely from home. This has made home office spaces highly desirable among home buyers. This trend for working from home shows no signs of stopping, with both employees and employers noting the benefits, cost savings, and productivity increases that come with remote work jobs.
By making a multi-use space in your home that can be used as an office or a home gym, you are creating a highly desirable and high-value feature for your home. Wellness and relaxation are becoming more important to people. With a multi-use space, you can have a home office by day and a wellness room in the evening. You can get even more use from the room by using it as a guest bedroom when needed.
Solar Panels And Home Battery Storage
Home power generation is going to change the way we see our homes in the near future. Slowly more homes are adding solar panels to their roofs or solar arrays to their outdoor spaces to generate some of their own power, reducing their energy bill and their carbon footprint. This addition does require quite a lot of financial investment, but the potential returns are huge, especially when you factor in the increase it makes to the value of your property.
Pairing these panels with home battery storage makes a huge difference to the setup. The batteries can store power generated during the day for the home to use in the evening when the sun has gone down. This lets you use your home-generated renewable energy all day long, not just when the sun shines.
Upgrade Your Outdoor Spaces
Yards are valuable assets to any home. However, yards often go unused and suffer from a lack of investment. Yards, both at the front and at the back, are a unique selling point for any home that can turn an inquiry from a potential buyer into a sale. Spending a little time and money on these areas can pay dividends when it is time to sell.
You can landscape a yard yourself with just basic tools and a plan, but paying a professional is inexpensive, and they will have lots of ideas on how to add value to the space. Give your yard a purpose. Add amenities for outdoor eating, cooking, and entertaining. A decked area is an always welcome addition and can help make your yard space a functional part of the home rather than an attractive accessory.
Open Up Your Living Spaces
If you can afford a larger-scale home improvement, give your entire living space a major makeover by opening up rooms and creating an open-plan home. This feature looks great in a family home and helps natural light reach dark corners of the house. This can change the way you live day-to-day in your house and makes it much more desirable to potential buyers.
Having an open-plan home means families can be together while still enjoying their own separate spaces and activities. Kids can be playing in the living room while a parent works in the home office, and someone cooks in the kitchen, but everyone is still together. The cost can be prohibitive, but it is worth it. Make sure you have a consultation with a structural engineer before you start knocking down walls.
Just two or three of these home improvements will have a big impact on your property value. Not only do they help you generate more profit when you sell your home, but many of them also help you save money while you live there.