Improve The Value Of Your Home For Less Than $2 000

by Patricia Taylor

Improving the value of a home is easy, and sometimes cheap. The most important thing you need to understand is where the home’s value is located.

The kitchen is the heart of the home. Just watch a few potential home buyers in an open house. They make a beeline for the kitchen before looking at any other room. A few focal points of a kitchen that people associate with value include the faucet, counter, and flooring.

A kitchen make-over can be as simple as replacing faucets and light fixtures, or as complex as a completely new floor.

Most people overlook the simple methods of redecorating a kitchen. Instead of replacing the cabinets, just have someone refinish the cabinet doors. There are companies that will refinish cabinet doors, and update drawers, for a fraction of the cost of a new kitchen.

Brighter light fixtures in a modern design can update the room. Outdated lighting can alter the mood and feel of an entire room. Next to dull, discolored faucet fixtures, the lighting ‘ages’ a room.

Follow this theme into the bathroom. Before looking at flooring or walls, look at the faucets and lighting. Many homeowners are afraid to limit their redecorating to these elements, but it is true, many rooms can be improved by simply replacing fixtures, switches, door handles, and lighting.

One of the cheapest and most effective ways of improving a home’s value is to modernize the storage. Easy to clean, dust free storage is very valuable and sought after in today’s homes.

With breathing problems on the rise, many homeowners feel that modern storage is not only an important element of the home, but it is a necessity. White, plastic coated, wire shelving is easier to clean than melamine shelving and stronger than glass.

White wire shelving has the added advantage of being easy to re-organize to fit the family’s needs as time progresses.

Energy saving is important in today’s homes. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars to add new flooring, which new owners may rip up anyway, add an energy efficient water heater. These water heaters cost less than $1 000 and only heat water as it is needed.

Updating a wood stove is another great way to improve a home’s value. A corn burning furnace is not only environmentally sound, but it is more efficient than wood, clean, and does not require a chimney. Another alternative is a pellet-burning stove.

Another method of improving the value of a home is updating the water system. Replacing old pipes will improve a home’s value. This may also include adding extra faucets outside, adding a special faucet in the garage or carport for cleaning vehicles.

The above home improvement projects should all cost less than $2000 each and can add thousands of dollars to the value of the home. These improvements not only improve the aesthetic look of the home, but it improves the house’s fundamental value – no matter who is buying the home.

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Kitchen Remodeling As A Home Improvement Project

by: Peter J. Mason

People who are considering doing some home improvement will be intereseted to know that the money you spend in order to complete your project is eligible for tax deduction. It is very important to know exactly what you are doing in your home improvement process, however, as home improvement is different from home repair. In the case of the tax deduction, home imporvement will qualify for the reduced rate, but home repair will not. It is imperative to know the difference between what constitutes repair and improvement.

SImply put, home improvement is an addition that will add to the appearance and the quality of your house. Items that fall under this category include things like kitchen remodeling, adding a fence to your yard, adding a swimming pool, extending a wing on your house and including a new room or two, building a garge, adding a porch or deck, installing new insulation, or upgrading heating and cooling systems. All of these upgrades are considered to be capital expenses.

Home repair, on the other hand, is in a different category. Home repair is a project that is undertaken in order to prevent the decay of your property. It does not add value to the house, instead it prevents the value from going down. This includes things like repairing holes in the walls or broken windows. These repairs correct a problem, and therefore are not considered eligible for tax benefits.

Ther is a way, however, that you can include your home repairs in your home improvement deduction. A clause in the act states that if an area of the house in need of repair is in the same area in which remodeling is taking place, the project undertaker is allowed to claim teh entire project as an improvement. Basically, if you are remodeling the kitchen, remember to fix the leaks in the roof and then claim the repair as part of the improvement.

Timing is definitely a factor when it comes to home improvement. The best time to do some upgrades to your home will be when interst rates are low. The lower rates mean that in the long run, the person using a loan to finance their improvemets will be able to spend less money. Refinancing is one way that many people secure the money to spend on their project. Loans secured in this way can be deducted in the same year as the refinance as points. If the proceeds of the refinancing are not used to improve a house, then points towards the improvement can be deducted over the life of the loan. If a project only uses a part of the loan that was taken out, then the deduction is considered proportional, with the remainder being taken off over the life of the mortgage. It is important to keep in mind that the points which are not taken off by the time the loan expires are usually deductible according to the percent rate in the final year.

Improving your home, in the end, will always add value. It is important in terms of saving some extra money that the home owner is aware of what can be deducted and what cannot.