43 tips on how to add value to your home (and make it easier to sell)

Property prices rise and fall with a number of factors in any economy, including recession, inflation and unemployment. However, homeowners often don’t take enough notice of what their property is really worth, and how to increase that value themselves. There are a lot of touches, from small aesthetic improvements to building work that could escalate your property’s price anywhere from a few thousand up to £50,000.

It is amazing how many homeowners, looking to sell their property, often have misconceptions about what actually improves the value of their home to a buyer, and by how much. For example, a survey carried out by HSBC highlighted that only 23% of home owners thought repainting or varnishing the front door may improve their chances of selling, while 63% of the property experts said that this would improve their chances of a sale. 

In the same survey, 38% of homeowners thought buying fresh flowers for the day of the viewing would make an impact, yet 0% (yes that’s zero!) of the experts surveyed said that fresh flowers make any impact at all.  This is why it is very important to understand how to improve your home’s value as well as present it as well as possible for sale without incurring too many unnecessary costs.

There are two types of values you can build into a home - a physical value, increased by the various improvements we have outlined in many of the tips covered, and a perceived value which, again, is impacted by many of the simple aesthetic tips we have suggested, but is further increased by other emotional factors. Buying a house is often an emotional experience for many people. Some of the tips in the “Bonus tips” section may help increase the positive feelings that potential buyers get when they are at your property, which in return may increase your chances of selling, and selling quicker.  

As a team of solicitors that are intent on building value for our customers, our research team have built a mammoth guide with the aim of helping you to improve the value of your home, and we hope that you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed putting it together. We also hope that this guide helps you increase the value of your property!

In the guide, we cover:

• Getting the basics right 
  There is so much information out there on improving your property value, but sadly a lot of it is quite disorganised. We thought it best to outline some of the key basics.

• Simple changes that make big impacts
  You don’t need to spend thousands of pounds to get your property sold quicker or for a higher value. Some very simple tricks might well do the trick!

• Mid to low cost changes to improve your property value
  It may be necessary to spend some money to improve your property’s value, and in this section of the guide we highlight some small spends that could make big impacts.

• Major changes to your home to grow property resale value
  Did you know that in London, if you spent £20,000 on a loft conversion, you could potentially add £40,000 to your property’s value? This section of the guide covers the big spends, that make even bigger impacts on your property’s price tag.

• Bonus tips
  Increase your chances of selling. It may not be enough just to increase your property value, you need to tweak a few things to increase your chances at securing a sale. We have compiled some tips to help you do this in this section.

So without further ado, we present 'The mammoth guide to increasing the value of your home'.