Your home is the easily the biggest financial investment you’ll likely ever make in your life – and its only fair to want assurances that that investment will pay off. The property market is the market everyone looks to for stable, inflation-beating growth, but – though house prices are higher than ever – the market is still a relatively static one. This means, practically speaking, that you have to work harder to extract the potential gains you may otherwise be expecting from your investment in your home.
Rather than waiting for the market to catch back up, you can instead invest a little further into your home, creating improvements and modernisations that add value and grow your potential returns. What follow are some of the most impactful improvements you can make to your home, that will increase its value and return you even more for your investment.
1. Modernise Your Kitchen for Maximum Impact
A lot of attention is given to extensions and conversions when it comes to increasing property value, and rightfully so – but in doing so, many property developers overlook the practical reality that underpins many buyers’ decision-making. In updating the utility spaces of your hope, you can not only increase property value directly but also increase the likelihood of a swift sale.
Arguably, the key utility space for this kind of thinking is the kitchen. Functional kitchens are a major selling point in any home, and also a great opportunity to create some free ‘wow factor’ for potential buyers. For a rustic feel, something as simple as a ceramic sink against a wood worktop can improve appeal significantly; couple this with upgraded kitchen tech, including integrated dishwashers and fridge cabinetry, and you have a kitchen that adds significant value to your home.
2. Upgrade Bathrooms for Style and Functionality
Taking this to its logical conclusion, a well-designed bathroom can also add serious value to your property. Often it’s the bathrooms that need the most modernisation after moving in – and it’s also the least glamourous room to invest in after moving in, putting it low on the pecking order for renovations. If you put a new bathroom in, new features with a longer life will attract higher offers, as will the convenience of not needing a new renovation.
Fundamentally, though, it is extra square footage that adds value to a property. Extending is the most effective route to increased property value, and an additional bathroom can add as much as 6% to the value of the average home.
3. Boost Energy Efficiency for Long-Term Gains
Last but not least, energy-efficiency is a hot-button issue at the moment – and a defining consideration for new home purchases going forwards. Unpredictable weather systems and high energy bills both make passive insulation installations vital; new double-glazing and upgraded wall insulation can dramatically improve a home’s EPC rating, and make it cheaper to run in the long-term; these considerations also add increasingly more value to home prices accordingly.
David Prior
David Prior is the editor of Today News, responsible for the overall editorial strategy. He is an NCTJ-qualified journalist with over 20 years’ experience, and is also editor of the award-winning hyperlocal news title Altrincham Today. His LinkedIn profile is here.
