With the Homebuilding and Renovating Show due to take place in Surrey (29th-30th June, Sandown Park), we thought we would look at some ways to increase the value of your home. Paul Testa, director of HEM Architects and a specialist in low-energy design, shares his top 10 tips.
House value is a peculiar preoccupation of us Brits. We have a tendency to view our homes as assets as well as one of the most important places in our day to day lives. Consequently, most people will have an eye on house value when they make decisions on what works to do or not to their home.
As well as practical considerations, value is based on what people are willing to pay to live the lifestyle that your home represents.
Remember always that this is your home. It’s somewhere you spend a big percentage of your time and that impacts hugely on your quality of life. Always invest in things that prioritise you and your family’s enjoyment, comfort and health first.
Up Your Kerb Appeal
The appearance and feel of a house as you arrive and enter it is critical to its value. How well it is presented from when you first see it walking or driving up the street to the moment you cross the front door threshold is all a selling opportunity. How does it make you feel? Would this be something you’d like to do for the next 5, 10, 20 years?
Elements like the front garden; the state of the drive or front path; what the front door is like; how well looked after does everything look all build a picture of the kind of house and the kind of lifestyle. Improvements to this can help lift the home’s value.
Keep Your House in Good Repair
A well looked-after house will look after you. Continued investment in maintaining and repairing your home while you live there will make it more comfortable and minimise your risk of issues. It will also save you a bigger cost when you come to sell. Visible poor repair will always reduce the value of a house, but less visible poor repair could reduce the home’s value after an offer has been accepted but before contracts have been exchanged. A house that’s looked after, looks good and will more likely be attractive to potential buyers.
Particularly important things for house longevity are underfloor ventilation; rainwater goods; roof maintenance and brickwork pointing. But also consider external woodwork and windows as these can really impact on how attractive a home is.
Maximise Your Internet Speed
Up until recently this was a key factor in house prices, but I get the feeling it’s being overtaken by energy efficiency measures except in locations where internet coverage is still patchy. Putting in the best connection you can, ideally full fibre, takes this issue away from potential buyers. Also think about your internal internet infrastructure. As more and more data is streamed, having an internal wired network to TVs and other devices makes these much more reliable and, again, saves your buyer upheaval and cost that they will value.
Install Green Measures
People have become much more aware of energy use over the last few years. This has been exacerbated by the energy and cost of living crisis. On tope of these cost drivers, people are increasingly aware of their impact on the environment and about climate change.
Recent research by Santander has shown that buyers are willing to pay as much as 10% more for homes that have been retrofitted. This premium tends to be more marked for highly visible measures such as solar panels and batteries rather than the less visible things like insulation, air-tightness and ventilation.
Make Your Home More Thermally Efficient
This doesn’t mean that improving your home’s insulation, air-tightness and ventilation doesn’t increase its value. It’s just that it’s harder to see and identify as a potential buyer. People are definitely appreciating the value of warmer and cheaper to run homes as energy prices have increased. The reduction of mould and improved air-quality have also risen up people’s agenda since Covid.
According to research from ING, the price of a home with an energy label H was on average 45% lower than that of a residential property with an A+ energy label in 2023. In 2022, the difference was 36%. Even those with an energy label B were worth 28% less in 2023, it says. Buyers definitely appreciate not having to spend the money and go through the upheaval of retrofitting themselves.
Create More Bedrooms
The price band of your house is typically dictated by the price of similarly sized homes in the immediate area/on the same road. In the UK we determine size, quite perversely, by the number of bedrooms a house has. This is hugely reductive as it fails to encompass the actual amount of space in the house or how well-sized and appointed the rooms are. But that’s the market. A house with more bedrooms, all other things being equal, will command a higher asking price.
This is generally achieved by making the house bigger; a 2-storey extension, a garage conversion; an extension over the garage or a loft conversion. If you have a particularly large bedroom, you could sub-divide it but this may work against you if comparing to similar homes which retain a some of the more generous spaces.
Create More Living Space
For many people this is the priority in their own homes. An extension often unlocks cramped feeling living space to create more generous kitchen, dining and living. It doesn’t always need to be an extension, though, and some clever design can help you get the most out of an inefficient layout without going to the cost of new space.
You need to think about how this space will be used, but also how it could be used by you or others in the future. Does it give you space for home working which has become so important in a post Covid world? Could you live on the ground floor if one of you had an accident or for later life? Does it allow family to do different activities in different spaces without feeling like you’re on top of each other?
Be careful with any extending that you do. You don’t want to create a home that is too top or bottom heavy. One with not enough/too much living space for the number of bedrooms. This could really limit who would be interested in living in your house and the price you could ask for it.
Invest in Good Design
At some point you might want to undertake significant works to remodel or extend your home. Whether it’s an architect or an interior designer; investing in good design can have a huge impact on the value of your home. The Modern House estate agents reviewed 14,000 property transactions in London between 2020 and 2023. They concluded that there was a weighted average price premium of +12% for design-led homes. This uplift will easily outstrip the cost of employing the best professionals to help you with an extension or remodel project.
Ditch Your Conservatory
In 2023 Right Move released a report that claimed that conservatories can knock up to £15,000 off the value of a house. There are increasing concerns amongst house buyers about how uncomfortable they are in the summer and the winter and how inefficient they are. There’s also a feeling that they’re starting to look dated or, in the words of the Telegraph, “naff”. Get rid of your conservatory and enjoy a bigger garden or, if you need the space, replace it with a more substantial extension or orangery.
Add Some Character
People want to buy into a lifestyle that they aspire to. Home ownership is about shelter and comfort, but it’s also about status and image. Interiors, especially, that are too bland and plain might be fine for a rental but won’t sell your home to future buyers. If you design and style your home to suit your character and lifestyle it’s likely it will appeal to buyers wanting a home like your’s. Steer away from extremes and you can enjoy wonderful spaces while you live there and have an attractive home for sale in the future.
Conclusion
You should always consider your house as your home, first and foremost. I’m not sure prioritising it as an asset is positive if it impacts on your enjoyment and comfort. However, if doing some work that increases your enjoyment in the long term and its future value, then that’s a definite win.
Complimentary tickets to attend the Homebuilding & Renovating Show can be claimed from HERE. The next events take place in Surrey (29-30 June, Sandown Park) and London (27-29 September, ExCeL, London).
Those interested in further advice can have a free one-on-one consultation with Paul Testa at the Homebuilding & Renovating Show. Complimentary tickets can be claimed from HERE.
See also: Winner of Scotland’s Home of the Year 2024 revealed
