Better Appliances

The kitchen is one of the top places to focus your efforts. Any kind of improvement that is made to the kitchen will make the home more valuable.

While a remodel of the kitchen can cost thousands upon thousands of dollars, an upgrade of the appliances will be much cheaper and yield great results.

Start by making sure all appliances match. For example, the stove, refrigerator, and microwave may have been purchased at various times and may not have the same finish. Start with the smallest and cheapest appliance and replace it to either match or complement the others.

Keep in mind that it is not always necessary to have all the appliances to match. For example, if the stove is black and the microwave is silver, these would compliment each other without requiring you to replace both of them.

Improve Light Fixtures

Simple light fixtures are easy to replace for people that are not afraid to get their hands dirty with some manual labor. Adding new fixtures in the bathroom, kitchen and around the front door can be done rather cheaply and most likely in a single weekend.

Like the aforementioned appliances in the kitchen, make sure the new light fixtures complement one another. This will create a running theme between the exterior of the home that matches well with the updates of the interior of the property.

Make Over for the Main Entry Door

Buyers will make a judgment based on the view of the front of the home. This means it is really important that the front of the home looks as good as possible. One simple way to spruce up the front is to repaint the front door in a new color. If you have the funds and the time, you can purchase a new door. Whether you replace the door or simply choose to add a fresh coat of paint, make sure the new appearance has a lot of pop.

Add Some Paint

One simple tactic is to repaint the interior. Fresh paint, along with patching and repairing holes from nails and other things, can make the place look new for little money. Most interior decorators agree that if your goal is to sell the property, you should stick with neutral colors. Neutral tones will bring appeal to the largest number of potential buyers and hopefully lead to a sale.

It will be easier to repaint the living room, dining room, and halls since these areas usually have large walls that will allow the use of a roller. These are also the areas that buyers will see first when inspecting the place.

Make the Lawn Look GREAT

One area that requires mostly labor and very little money is the yard. Giving the grass a fresh cut, edging around the driveway & walkways, and trimming the shrubs will greatly improve the overall appearance of the home and give the impression that the home is well maintained.

This is also a good time to remove any weeds that may be present in the flower bed. Also consider adding new, colorful flowers. This is another item that will only need some time and labor and very little cost.

If you have access to the equipment or don’t mind renting the equipment, a power washer can be another great tool. Use the power washer to clean off the driveway and walkway to make them look like new.

Having great curb appeal is key when thinking about the outside.

New Knobs for Doors

Another small detail that gets a lot of attention is doorknobs. Whether it is the knob on the front door or the knobs on kitchen cabinets and drawers, these items get a ton of use. This perpetual use wears down the finish on the knobs and makes them look more worn and used than the surrounding items.

Keep the home’s style in mind when choosing knobs. A nice knob on the entry door that looks like something from a Victorian home may sound great, but if the home is only 5 years old, the knob may be too out of place and look odd.

Improve the Bathroom

Next to the kitchen, a good bathroom can really persuade a person to buy a home. A simple vanity replacement and updated toilet can be inexpensive and make the room look much newer. Also, in keeping with the earlier theme of adding a fresh coat of paint, it will be simple to repaint the bathroom when the vanity and toilet are removed. These improvements, along with new light fixtures, will give the bathroom a brand new look for very little money.

New Molding

If your home does not have crown molding in the living rooms and dining rooms, or if the molding is out of date, this can be a great upgrade. Molding can be purchased inexpensively from most any hardware store and painted to match the walls or, even better, to complement the walls.

Deep Clean the Floors

While most of the other suggestions concern updating or upgrading a particular feature of the home, this is a simpler suggestion. Floors attract so much dirt over time that we often forget how the floors looked when they were new. Rent a steam cleaner if you have multiple rooms with carpet that need cleaning. If you have tile and hardwoods, good polishing & cleaning techniques can add a new shine to the floors and really make the home look better.

Final thoughts on 9 economical ways to increase the value of your home without breaking the bank

Most of these tips are aimed for people that don’t want to spend a ton of money in order to improve the home’s overall appeal. The focus is to use time and basic manual labor to do a good job of upgrading the home’s look.