The One Room To Renovate For The Best Home Value

Buying a home is a big dream for many people. It's also a huge investment that involves a lot of research and consideration. When you start looking for your dream home, there are many elements to keep in mind. Location, square footage, number of bedrooms, bathrooms — the checklist can go on and on. When your home no longer is your dream residence, however, some homeowners will end up getting a return on their large, long-term investment when they put it back on the market. Preparing to sell your house can be just as much of a task as finding one to move into. In order to make a home more appealing on the market, sellers can find themselves putting more money into their initial investment by spending it on home renovations. Instead of throwing money into anything and everything, it's important to prioritize renovating rooms that will ultimately bring about the best home value. Among the higher priority rooms to consider upgrading to increase your home value is the kitchen. 

Known as the heart of the home, the kitchen is an integral part of a property. It's where meals are prepared, guests are entertained, and stomachs are filled. It's also a heavily utilized area, with guests constantly moving in and out of it. Since the kitchen sees a lot of foot traffic, renovating and updating your kitchen to be visually pleasing as well as functional can be the key to increasing your home value and finalizing a sale. According to Angi, kitchen renovations can boost home values up by $13,500 to $25,920.

Before you take a complete wrecking ball to your kitchen, it's important to be aware of what you really have to upgrade and what will be okay as-is. One of the biggest mistakes made by home sellers is splurging on luxury appliances. Even if they're the most state-of-the-art, high-tech gadgets, there are some expensive kitchen upgrades that won't help your home value too much. While new appliances are a great bonus for potential buyers, fixtures that are still functional and not too outdated are good enough to keep while selling your home. If you do find your appliances a little too retro, you'll get the most return on an investment on appliances by replacing them with energy-efficient models over high-tech ones. Home buyers are more likely to gravitate towards more green and environmentally-friendly gadgets as they are good for the planet and effectively lower utility bills. 

In addition to appliances, other important aspects to focus on to boost your home value are storage and layout. Having adequate and sufficient storage areas for dishware, spices, and other kitchen equipment is an important factor to consider when renovating your home for selling. Ensuring your existing kitchen's storage is visually pleasing with cohesive cabinet doors and eye-catching hardware are also things that appeal to potential buyers. Countertop materials and kitchen islands are also prime selling points because they allow kitchen spaces to serve as a place to entertain, feed, and bring people together.