The last few blogs have covered the topic about why you purchase your home- mainly as an investment or mainly for the sake of owning. My personal reasons fell somewhere in the middle- I want to make money and I want the benefits of owneship.
So, to achieve this, I took great care in choosing a home that had the potential to be a good investment, now, I am working hard at the next important phase: ownership.
To make a good investment on your home, you should accomplish the following during home ownership:
1) Keep your home well maintained: If you want to make money on your home, it should have curb appeal. It should be at its best on the day that you sell. There are some things that you can do to “get your home ready to sell”, and you should. But, it is wise to treat your home as the investment that it is- from day one. Taking care of your property will help retain its value. And beleive me, its more work than you might think 🙂
2) Carefully consider which home improvements you make:
Some home improvements have been proven to have a better return on investment than others.
If you truly want to make money on a home, you will also need to consider what other people like in addition to what you like. Spending a fortune remodeling your kitchen could have no return on your investment if you choose a color scheme that others may find unattractive, for example.
Keep up with the Joneses, but getting too far ahead might not be as rewarding. Remember, a huge part of your homes value is its location. Improvements can only increase its value so much. I believe that the law of limited returns applies here- once you approach the maximum value for your location, you won’t see as much of a return on additional improvements.
