Tips to Improve Your Home Sale Chances

Selling your home this spring? Here are a few tips to improve your chances of a sale.

HomeGain.com recently surveyed nearly 1,000 real estate agents, asking them to identify the top 12 do-it-yourself home improvements that can help sell a home faster. Cleaning and de-cluttering ranked as highest return on investment, no doubt in part because it was the least expensive. Its cousin, home staging, which largely involves removing unneeded furniture and other decorations, came in second.

According to the HomeGain survey, the top five home improvements that Realtors recommend to home sellers based on cost and return on investment (from highest to lowest ROI) are:

1. 1. Cleaning and de-cluttering ($200 cost / $1,700 price increase / 872% ROI)
2. Home staging ($300 cost / $1,780 price increase / 586% ROI)
3. Lightening and brightening ($230 cost / $1,300 price increase / 572% ROI)
4. Landscaping ($320 cost / $1,500 price increase / 473% ROI)
5. Repairing plumbing ($385 cost / $1,250 price increase / 327% ROI)

Cleaning and de-cluttering continues to rank as the top suggested home improvement (since the survey was originally conducted in 2000), recommended by 98 percent of Realtors, costing less than $200 and returning a value of nearly $1,700 to the home's sale price, or an 872% return on investment.

Rounding out the top 12, the list of low cost, do-it-yourself home improvements includes: updating electrical, replacing or shampooing carpets, painting interior walls, repairing damaged floors, updating kitchen, painting outside of home, and updating bathrooms.

The home improvement projects with the highest price increases to a home's resale value is Updating the Kitchen ($1,200 cost / $2,850 price increase), followed by Painting the Outside of the Home ($900 cost / $1,815 price increase) and Home Staging ($300 cost / $1,780 price increase). Most of these projects involve the interior of the home.

It is important to recognize that these steps alone will not sell a home. Talk to us, we can offer more suggestions and tips.