Home Base:Polish the product for faster home sale

By Home Base

Selling your home this spring? Here’s how to improve your prospects.

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:
• Cleaning and de-cluttering ($200 cost / $1,700 price increase / 872 percent ROI)
• Home staging ($300 cost / $1,780 price increase / 586 percent ROI)
• Lightening and brightening ($230 cost / $1,300 price increase / 572 percent ROI)
• Landscaping ($320 cost / $1,500 price increase / 473 percent ROI)
• Repairing plumbing ($385 cost / $1,250 price increase / 327 percent 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 percent return on investment.

"Many Realtors agree, especially in a buyer's market, that sellers who make these recommended home improvements often get their homes sold faster and at higher prices," stated Louis Cammarosano, General Manager at HomeGain. "We have customized our Home Sale Maximizer, an online home improvement tool, to help identify and prioritize the projects that can increase the salability and selling price of a home."

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. The December 2010 issue of Home Base also contains an article titled "Exterior home improvements provide the best returns" that identifies a number of relatively inexpensive exterior improvements that will also help sell your home faster.

It is important to recognize that these steps alone will not sell a home. Even more important are other steps like developing a marketing plan and selecting a qualified real estate agent if you aren't planning to sell your home yourself or through a discount broker. That part of the equation deserves even more attention, and there is plenty of independent content on the Internet to help in that regard. Many real estate broker Websites also have much useful information, but don’t expect to find advice on how to sell a home without an agent. There are free home sellers tips on the American Homeowners Foundation’s Website, and a growing number of Websites that also provide consumer ratings of real estate agents.

Home Base is a publication of the American Homeowners Grassroots Alliance and the American Homeowners Foundation. For more information go to americanhomeowners.org. Copyright 2011, American Homeowners Foundation and the American Homeowners Grassroots Alliance.