Do Home Additions Add Value?
Our homes provide us with many benefits, like shelter from the elements, memories that can last a lifetime, and providing homeowners economic value. But just like us, homes can change and grow over time. For example, a perfect house for a young couple starting their lives together can become a stressful living situation if they decide to start growing their family, so they get a home addition like a secondary suite to get some extra space. Not only do home additions provide functional benefits like giving a young family space to grow, but it’s possible for them also to add value to your home.
If you are thinking about renovating or adding to your home, you might as well do it to improve the function and enjoyment of the house and add resale value. Let’s discover which home additions add value to your home.
Increased Physical Space
For many home buyers, the number one reason they are looking for a new place to live is that they have a need for more space. You can do this in two ways, adding physical square footage and making the home feel more spacious. You can add physical square footage in several ways. Some of the most popular methods are adding an extension like a secondary suite and finishing an unfinished basement. If you don’t have a basement to upgrade or space to add a secondary suite, you can open up the floor plan by knocking down the right walls (without compromising the building’s structural integrity, of course).
In the right market, these space-increasing renovations can raise the value of your home by tens of thousands of dollars.
Enhancing Curb Appeal
While increasing your home’s physical space or square footage is the biggest reason many home buyers will start house hunting, the most important factor for increasing marketability, and therefore value, is curb appeal. We all know how important first impressions can be. Whether we like it or not, people have a tendency to make snap judgements that can be difficult to change. First impressions matter when we meet a new person, hear a new song, watch the first episode of a new TV show, or even when we see a house on the market for the first time.
There are many ways to improve curb appeal, and naturally, what looks good to one person might not interest another. Still, there are some additions and general maintenance projects that almost always increase your homes’ value.
Improving curb appeal can be as simple as adding a new coat of paint to the exterior along with some basic landscaping. If you spend $3000 on lawn care, pruning shrubs, laying mulch and planting lots of flowers, you can get as much as a 100% return on your investment. If you want to make a more significant first impression, Remodeling magazine’s 2020 Cost vs Value report claims that adding a stone veneer to the bottom third of the street-facing side of a house costs nearly $10,000 but adds 96% of that cost as additional value.
Other Ways to Add Value
Even though home additions like adding a secondary suite or stone veneer are big ticket ways to add value to your home, there are various smaller projects you can do as well. Add value by:
- Upgrading fixtures like doorknobs, faucets, and drawer handles
- Installing/refinishing hardwood floors
- Installing energy-efficient windows and appliances
On top of major home additions, these lower-cost upgrades will increase the value of your home due to its new enhanced interior style, improved functionality, and increased energy efficiency.
Your home takes care of you, so you should take care of it. And if you do, it can mean big returns if you ever decide it’s time to sell.
