Top Ten Low Cost Home Improvements to Aid the Sale of Your House

The home sales market is a buyer's dream right now. Most buyers don't need additional costs soif you do the easy home improvements with your own labor it helps sell your home. The good news for people selling their home is that buyers are again looking for homes. We keep our home in pretty good condition, making the higher cost improvements yearly. Despite these facts, as a home seller, we must be competitive with other houses coming on the market. Here's where our labor kept these home improvements low cost and boosted buyer appeal.

Low Cost Home Improvement # 1: Sell or Store Large Items

Cost: $0 to 25% of value. The idea here is to keep one or two large items in a room to make the room look larger and allow buyers to inspect the room easier. For instance, our king-sized bed was replaced with our queen-sized guest bed, the two dressers with one dresser, the two end tables not replaced. If you sell large items and want them to move quickly, expect to discount them. We found Craigslist brought immediate results. Storage costs aren't cheap and neither is shipping your item.

Low Cost Home Improvement # 2: Cut Back Shrubs Along Walkways and Near House

Cost: $0 to $20 an hour. If you do the work yourself, your only cost is labor. If you hire it done, expect to pay $20 per hour on average.

Low Cost Home Improvement # 3: Wash Siding and Gutters

Cost: $30 for soap and a scrub brush, more if you require a ladder. Removing the outside Northwest algae is almost as important as removing any sign of detritus in your gutters. We also touched up paint on areas impacted by weather.

Low Cost Home Improvement # 4: Remove Clutter From Your Home

Cost: $0 to $100. The main cost we ran into with removing the clutter from our home involved buying boxes. We quickly realized we had three categories of items-items for donation, items for sale, items for storage. After that, the main work involved was wrapping and packing the boxes which were stacked in the guest room.

Low Cost Home Improvement # 5: Vacuum and Steam Clean Carpets

Cost: $0 to $100. Renting the machine, buying steam cleaner, traffic and spot remover, and odor remover are the main costs. The largest amount of effort involved filling and emptying the two gallon steam cleaner compartments.

Low Cost Home Improvement # 6: Remove All Photographs, Paintings, and Other Wall Hangings

Cost: $0 to $100. The main costs involved removing hooks, filling the holes and repairing the surface with texture, then packing.

Low Cost Home Improvement # 7: Beautify the Entry to Your Home

Cost: $0 to $300. The main costs we ran into involved buying Weed and Feed ($20), buying Cedar Chips ($100) to use as garden mulch, and garden spot plants ($50).

Low Cost Home Improvement # 8: Make Your Kitchen Sparkle

Cost: $0 to $30. We have painted cabinets we needed to touch up with paint ($10). If you have wood cabinets, the costs would involve wood cleaner and soap to polish handles. We also needed to remove any items from the counters and remove excess goods from the cupboards.

Low Cost Home Improvement # 9: Tidy Bathrooms

Cost: $0 to $200. The checklist on our bathroom included polishing the faucets, replacing toilet seats ($10 to $30), resealing sinks and tubs ($5-$10 for the seal), replacing chipped sinks ($100 for the equipment plus two days of hassle), touching up cabinets($10) and cleaning flooring.

Low Cost Home Improvement # 10: Paint Your Home in Neutral Colors

Cost: $300 plus labor. We painted ourselves. The costs are due to the number of cans of paint required to paint all the rooms. We picked a slightly warmer wall color than the trim color