• Improve the air in your home. If you have older carpets in your home, they could be housing contaminants and allergens. To determine if carpeting need replacing, hire a company to test your indoor air quality. If results show that your carpets should be replaced, use environmentally friendly natural products like wood, tile, or laminate floors. Hard-surface floors are much easier to clean, don’t hold odors, instantly update your home, and, in general, are more appealing to buyers. • Remove textured or “popcorn” ceilings. Popcorn ceilings date a house as few structural elements do. Remove the dated look and add to the value of your home. Beware that ceilings might contain asbestos — have yours tested professionally. Then use a solution to soften the texture, and scrape the popcorn away. Removing a popcorn ceiling may not seem like a big change but one of the keys to adding value to your home is to repair, replace, or remove anything that could turn buyers away, no matter how small a change it might seem. HOME IMPROVEMENTS IN THE $200 TO $400 RANGE • Engage a lawn service to clean up the yard. The key to curb appeal is your front yard. Carelessly mowed grass, patchy brown areas, and untrimmed bushes or hedges are a fast turn-off to prospective home buyers. A lawn care service can be engaged for a few hundred dollars to trim your lawn and shape your hedges. The curb appeal will go from messy to maintained. • Clean even where it’s not seen. Expect people to be picky when they are shopping for and choosing a new home. Cleanliness counts — and you only get one chance at a first impression. So make the interior of your home sparkle from the moment buyers walk through the door! For about $400, hire a cleaning service for a thorough top- to-bottom scrubbing. Even a well-maintained home has overlooked nooks and crannies. For about $200 more, get all the windows in the house professionally washed. • Minor bathroomupdates return big dividends. Even if you can’t afford a full bathroom renovation or remodel, small changes such as repainting, removing dated wallpaper, and replacing old lighting
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