It doesn’t matter whether you are planning to sell your home in the next few months or whether you just moved in — you should be looking to make changes that improve the value of your home. While you might be eager to launch into a high-profile kitchen upgrade or an expansion that gives you a bigger master bedroom, the truth is that better landscaping is almost always the safest investment when it comes to increasing home value.
However, not everyone has the budget to complete significant renovations on their home’s exterior. Fortunately, there are small, medium and large projects for every budget that will increase value and make you happier.
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Low Budget
Often, it’s the details of the landscape that make or break exterior style, and fortunately, many of the details outside your home aren’t particularly expensive. There are a number of projects for your home’s exterior that don’t cost more than about $100 but will subtly revolutionize its look and feel. These include:
Landscape care
Overgrown trees and shrubs, patchy lawns, weeds and worse can scare away even the most committed buyer. If you have the right tools on hand, you can clean up your yard for free in a weekend or two. Then again, it doesn’t cost much to hire professional lawn care maintenance, so you can forget about working on your yard and focus on improving other aspects of your home.
House numbers
The numbers of your address are typically the only text on your home — thus, the style of those numbers says a lot about your property. Generally, you need your house numbers to be visible and large; some municipalities require house numbers to be illuminated or reflective, so you should check your local regulations. Beyond that, you should try to make your house numbers somewhat unique while matching the style of your home’s exterior. Some house numbers you can DIY, but you can also buy creative numbers from makers online.
Mailbox
Mailboxes are another architectural feature of your front yard, meaning you can use yours to augment your home’s exterior style. Standalone mailboxes will be slightly more expensive because they are larger and require support, but you can easily replace a wall-mounted mailbox for cheap. As with your house numbers, you should try to match the style of your mailbox with the overall style of your home.
Outdoor lighting
Admittedly, exterior lighting can be a small project, but it can also become large relatively quickly. You can transform your landscape merely by adding a few solar-powered lights along pathways, so visitors know where to safely step. However, if you have a bit more budget to spare, you might consider adding more dramatic outdoor lighting, to include up-lights on tall features like trees and flagpoles or spotlights and floodlights on low or broad features like flowerbeds or your lawn. You might also add string lights around entertainment areas. You don’t want your home’s exterior to be as bright as day, but well-placed lights add character to your property after the sun sets.
Mid Budget
The outside of your home experiences much more severe wear and tear than anything inside. Thus, even though your home’s exterior is built with more robust materials, it’s not uncommon that you need to perform larger repair and renovation projects around your yard. These projects aren’t cheap, but it shouldn’t take you long to afford them, either. They include:
New paint
Just as interior color trends shift, the colors on the exterior of your home have likely gone out of style. Plus, exterior paint needs to be refreshed every five to 10 years, depending on your regional climate and the materials of your home. This is a project you can DIY if you have the time and skill, but you will still need to acquire enough paint to cover your property — to include any fences. You should keep the palette of your landscape in mind when choosing your paint color, but you can gain inspiration from https://www.allurausa.com/blog/trending-exterior-house-colors-2019 trending tones, too.
Repairs
It’s a good idea to get your home in good working order before you put it on the market; that way, you can set a higher asking price and avoid an abundance of low offers. You should give special attention to any issues that can be seen from outside your property, like cracked windows, rotting siding, missing shingles and more. It might be wise to hire a home inspector to point out problems that buyers might see, so you can make the more significant repairs ahead of time. As with painting, you might be able to do many repairs yourself, but it might save you time and effort to hire a handyman.
Outdoor living space
One of the most major trends in exterior renovations is the increasing emphasis on outdoor living spaces. Homeowners increasingly want to take full advantage of their yards with comfortable and well-appointed outdoor rooms. If you already have a relatively large outdoor entertaining space, like a patio or a deck, you might consider fitting it with built-in countertops and appliances like a refrigerator and sink to create an outdoor kitchen. You can also invest in outdoor furniture that makes the space feel more like a living room.
High Budget
Finally, if you want to build serious value into your home, you need to commit a serious amount of cash to the endeavor. Larger-scale updates are more expensive, but they also ensure that your home looks fully updated, increasing your curb appeal dramatically. Here are some examples of high-budget projects for your home’s exterior:
Garage door update
You might not think about your garage door, but your future buyers do. At the very least, you want garage doors with mechanisms that function perfectly on command and that efficiently insulate the garage against temperature and air. However, a big-budget project includes replacing your garage door with one that has a vastly improved style, such as a door of glass and metal or else a natural wood, carriage–style door.
Front door update
Painting your front door an eye-catching color is a low-cost change, but replacing your door entirely can provide you with even more home value. Currently in-style are costly iron and glass doors, which give a stylish and imposing look to any home. However, because your front door is a major element of your home’s first impression, you should feel free to be creative with it, perhaps even reorganizing your entryway to place your front door at a more attractive location on your home’s exterior.
Unfortunately, it is possible to over-invest in your home; you don’t want to put more money into your property than you are likely to recoup upon sale. Thus, even if you have a near-unlimited budget, you might want to talk to a real estate agent or realtor to better understand what exterior updates you can safely make. Most importantly, you should prioritize updates that help you enjoy your home
