5 Ways To Increase Your Home Value

5 Ways To Increase Your Home Value
The quickest way to improve the value of your home is to add so-called “curb appeal” to your home.
I originally ran this article at ezinearticles.com. since then it has received several hundred views, and has been featured on the homepage of several websites. I wrote it in reply to a question about flipping house for profit and how to make money without having to put a lot of time and money into home repairs. Quite simply, changing the outside appearance of a home is a great start.
As in the other income opportunities discussed on this page, flipping houses for profit is an income opportunity that should only be tried if you can develop a passion for real estate. Are you interested in real estate? Do you have the skills to make home repairs, or assess the quality of subcontracted work? Finally, do you have the financial resources and time to wait out the cyclical nature of real estate investing?
Read the article below and tell me what you think. Tell the rest of us about your best real estate transaction.
Curb appeal is a subjective judgment of your home's value based on its appearance from the street. As prospective buyers drive by your home they are essentially, "window shopping." And as any retailer can tell you, if the customer is not impressed by your display, he or she will not come in.
You can improve the curb appeal of your home by doing five simple things:
1. Spruce up the landscaping. 2. Repair sagging porches. 3. Remove or replace old fences. 4. Paint your door and trim. 5. Clean and repair old driveways.
Sprucing up the landscaping begins with trimming trees and bushes that have grown out of control or block the view from windows. Hedges should also be trimmed to appear uniform and well manicured. Finally, pull the weeds and fertilize the grass. Your overall attempt here is not to spend a fortune on landscaping, rather, you want to create the impression that the yard is neat, clean, free of any junk or trash, and is well maintained.
Sagging porches are an eyesore and tell prospective buyers a lot abut the structural integrity of your home. Take a close look at your porch from the street. Is the roofline square with the house roof? Are the steps, rails, and floor boards sturdy and in good repair? As in landscaping, your porch is immediately visible from the street and can provoke a powerful positive or negative impression of your home.
Robert Frost taught us that fences make good neighbors, but an old fence can also destroy your home's curb appeal. Over time fences lose their beauty due to loose boards, leaning posts, broken gates, and weed growth. If your fence is beyond repair, you may be better off totally removing it.
Short of repainting your entire home's exterior, it can pay you dividends in the form of enhanced curb appeal to at least paint the front door and the window and roof trim. Keep the color traditional and be sure to clean up any paint smudges or spills. Doors can also be improved by changing worn knobs with impressive looking brass knobs and knockers. You may also want to replace your house address numbers with oversize numbers that tastefully contrast with your trim paint.
Does your driveway look like the Exxon Valdez ran aground in front of your home? Cracked and greasy driveways and sidewalks are a major turnoff to homebuyers. Remove any broken down or unsightly vehicles from the property, repair cracks and fissures in the concrete, and clean the oil spills with an environmentally friendly degreaser.
Curb appeal is considered one of the top ten factors in home valuations. Before listing your home for sale, ensure the landscaping, porches, fences, paint, and driveway are cleaned and repaired. To learn more about home values, making money at home, and other income opportunities visit http://www.wealthsearch.org. Nothing sells a home faster than curb appeal.

The trick to surviving an economic crunch is to prepare by learning to spend less than you earn. Use any surplus income you have to create a safety net-that, is, cash in the bank. Ideally, this safety net should equal at least 6 months worth of your living expenses.
I know this is not realistic for most of us, and it may already be too late to prepare for some of us. If you are in the depths of an economic crunch, you have to figure out how to both cut your current spending and increase your income.
Start by cutting out the luxuries you enjoy, but could live without. This list may include dropping bad habits like smoking, drinking, gambling, eating out, and buying things to impress friends and neighbors. I know none of this sounds like fun, but desperate times.
Once you have gained control of your spending, including rampant credit card use, it is time to find sources of additional income. I don't advocate looking for a second job, but for some of us this may be a good alternative. If you can swing it, find a job working for tips so you can go home every night with some cash in your pocket. Outside the second job curse, you need to look into low cost and low barriers to entry Internet business opportunities. Look at places like Survey Savvy, Send Earnings, Helium, Clickbank, and Squidoo for blogging and paid survey opportunities.
For the long-term, get your financial act together by continuing to spend less than you earn, set up a savings plan, develop some action oriented goals, and invest in appreciable assets. To learn more about creating wealth and exploring various income opportunities, visit http://www.wealthsearch.org.