When you carry out home improvement projects, there’s an immediate benefit to your quality of life but there’s also the possibility of an uplift in your property’s selling price. The question is, given the variety of works you can carry out, if you were looking to see a positive financial return on a project when you come to sell up, what should you choose to do?
Add space, add value!
Where land is concerned, essentially the more there is of it, the higher it sells for. Therefore projects which create more usable space – think loft conversions and extensions – are the most likely to add value to your property’s selling price.
You have to take into account what property prices are doing in your locale to estimate the scale of return you might expect of course. The place your neighbourhood is in is always important: property-buying TV programmes drive this fact home constantly. In absolute terms, you’ll realise more profit for a loft conversion in a mews house in London’s West End than you would for a terrace house in Doncaster even taking into account the higher costs of conveyancing in London.
Budget realistically and research the work involved
Larger projects require more money and greater additional work and obviously, more can go wrong. You should be very realistic about how much you can afford and try to factor in some ‘just in case something goes wrong’ money – building projects in general are notorious for overrunning and for initial cost estimates being too low.
You need to bear in mind also that many projects require both planning permission and building regulation approval – before you start any work, you should always check your local council’s website for information about what you are legally expected to do.
Cutting corners here is very bad judgement; not only might you risk breaking the law but you might also actually make your home more difficult to sell and worth less money, defeating the entire object of what you’re hoping to achieve
Don’t forget that Rightmove’s website can provide you with excellent information to help you predict what your improved property might sell for because you can find out about recently sold properties comparable to yours which have the improvement/improvements in question.
The table below lists various improvements and gives a simple opinion on which are likely to add to your home’s resale value. You must always continue to research your local market however; no-one can accurately predict price movements or which home improvements are coming into or going out of fashion at any particular point in time.
| Home Improvement | Uplift to resale value? |
| Loft conversion | Yes |
| Extension | Yes |
| Wine cellar | Possibly |
| Garage | Possibly |
| Parking space (non-garage) | No |
| Buying more land | Yes |
| Changing internal structure | Possibly |
| Central heating | No |
| Double glazing | Yes |
| Replace Kitchen/Bathroom | No |
| Internal Redecoration | No |
| Pebble-dashing, white-washing | No |
| Gardening | Possibly |
| Rewiring | No |
| New carpet/wooden floor | No |
Where ‘Possibly’ appears above, it tends to be alongside those projects where individual taste is a key factor: if you’re buying a home, you may or may not prefer white-washing to pebble-dashing on the walls, for example.
The projects marked ‘No’ tend to be those where you’re not going to end up with additional space and/or people may simply expect this work to be done ‘as standard’ or as part of general maintenance. You can reasonably expect a house you’re looking to buy to have reasonably modern electrical wiring, for example, and you may just have to carry out the work to ensure that your property reaches its full asking price on sale.
Written by Marcus Simpson
Digital Marketing Manager
