Five Affordable Updates That Can Raise Your Home’s Sale Price

A top-dollar sale often comes from small, smart updates rather than a massive renovation. We break down five high-ROI ways to make your home feel modern, clean, and worth more before it hits the market. 

• swapping dated hardware to instantly elevate kitchens, baths, and doors 
• upgrading key light fixtures to boost first impressions and perceived quality 
• applying fresh neutral paint to remove wear and make the home feel cared for 
• using staging to help buyers see the lifestyle even if finishes are dated 
• decluttering and deep cleaning to build buyer trust through small details 

If you want more ways to sell smarter, hit subscribe and follow along. 

Transcript

Small Changes Big Sale Price

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What if a few simple changes could add thousands to the sale price of your home? I want to break down the top five things that have the best investment for you before your home hits the market. When you go to sell your house, sometimes you're in a scenario of feeling like maybe it needs a renovation. Before you take on a massive$150,000 project and you tear your entire house down to its studs, what I'd recommend is revisiting the conversation and thinking about a few minor tweaks that can be made for a much smaller budget that have a really big impact. Number five, think about your hardware. Now it's interesting. Sometimes you have honest conversations with sellers and they go, my house could probably use a heavy renovation. But before you think about investing$100,000 and tear down some walls, pause and recognize that sometimes a few small tweaks in your home can have a really massive impact. One of the biggest impacts that we see is actually around hardware. So this is your kitchen knobs and pulls that you might have. This also includes your doorknobs. Are any of these items dated? It's really easy to make some swaps in the primary bathroom and in the kitchen and all of a sudden transform the space. And it feels so different if you simply elevate the hardware. Number four is lighting. Lighting is what I like to consider the jewelry on a house. It is the thing that most home buyers pay attention to when it comes to finishes outside of just color. And so this is where you really want to invest the dollars and make sure you're making smart decisions. With that being said, if your lighting is looking a little dated or the quality isn't up to par with the property value of your home, this is where you want to invest. Now I'm not saying you need to tear out every light fixture in your home and replace all of them, but if you update key spaces like your foyer, your kitchen, your formal dining room, these have a massive impact. First, they're the first light fixtures that somebody sees when they walk into the home. The other reason is these tend to be the primary ones that have the excitement, that have the beauty behind them. If your bathrooms are heavily dated, it's another one to consider where again, a little bit of an upgrade, a quick investment can have a really massive ROI. Love design, but think like a business owner? If you're ready to leave your nine to five and want to do something that's buildable and scalable, check out linden-creek.com slash franchise and see if Linden Creek is the right fit for you. Number three, fresh paint. Now your home may have a great paint color already, but there is something that happens when we get rid of those scuffs, when we get rid of the wear and tear that happens with real life, and you have a fresh coat of paint. It feels clean. And when you don't see those imperfections that just happen with life, all of a sudden the home feels like it's really well cared for and taken care of. And that adds dollars back into your pocket as a seller. Now, if you have some bold colors in your home, listen, props to you. I love a bold statement, but that is not something that's necessarily going to appeal to the masses. And so choosing a really neutral color is something that's very beneficial. In today's world, that tends to sit in a warm white linen sort of tone. You want to warm up the space, but keep things light, bright, and airy. Number two is staging. You heard it, it has a massive impact. So if you don't have the budget to repaint your house, you don't want to make the renovations and the updates, where you want to spend your money is on staging through and through. I will openly tell you that I have staged properties with yellow walls and green carpeting, and the ROI on that staging was phenomenal. People looked past it all, they saw the neutral furniture and the decor and the design, and they got top dollar for the house, even though there was work that needed to be done on the property. And finally, number one is decluttering and cleaning. This is a great one because, first of all, it tends to be free or pretty inexpensive if you are bringing help in to help with this. But when you take things out of the home and simplify it and strip it down to what it really needs to tell a story and create a lifestyle, you're building something in your property that's going to give you a really impressive ROI. Cleaning is an important part of that too. Now, as silly as that sounds, that's not. Take out the vacuum and make sure you wipe down the counters. Yes, of course. But give the house a deep cleaning. Get rid of the cobwebs that are on the window that happened over the winter. Think about the baseboards and make sure they're really well wiped down. Those little details indicate that you are maintaining and caring for your home. And that gives buyers the confidence they need to say yes. If you want more ways to sell smarter, hit subscribe and follow along. This is In Good Space.