Home Features Today’s Buyers Want Most

If you’re ready to sell your home, you might be thinking about remodeling. Depending on your budget, you might have many options available. We made a list of some home features that will potentially raise the value of your home and help you sell faster. Keep reading to find out what today’s home buyers are looking for.

Fully-remodeled kitchen and bathroom

When home buyers look at a property, these two rooms are the ones that will make the biggest impression. Before people consider selling, most don’t have the budget to remodel their entire homes. If you are in a similar situation, make sure to focus on redoing your kitchen and bathroom.

So, why is this the case? First, these rooms are usually the most expensive to update. Potential buyers are looking for homes that will cut down on these costs. Their perspective is – you can repaint your home and buy a few pieces of new furniture, which will give your home a new look. But if the kitchen and bathroom are outdated, this will be a big cost in the future. Fully-remodeled kitchen and bathroom can raise the price of your home by up to $100,000. Keep in mind that this is an approximate calculation and applies to homes that sell for less than $1 million.

Exterior lighting

If you own a house, exterior lighting is what’s going to attract more buyers. When it comes to curb appeal, these lights can have many benefits. First, exterior lighting looks good and gives the impression that the house is more appealing. On the other hand, it gives more options for entertaining in the yard during the hot summer months. Lastly, outdoor lighting is considered a safety feature in some neighborhoods, which is very important to families with kids.

Luckily for home sellers, installing exterior lighting is not very expensive. Depending on your taste and budget, you can find smaller pieces for less than $50. If you’re in doubt, consult your real estate agent or a staging professional – they will help you choose the best option for your exterior lighting.

Laundry room

It might not sound obvious, but laundry rooms rank high as one of the home features today’s buyers want most. If you think about it, families with more than two kids avoid a lot of mess in their homes by handling all their laundry in one room if there are both washer and a dryer – even better! Besides its main purpose, a laundry room is a good solution for lack of storage. So, home-buyers who are multi-member families love this feature in their future homes.

If you don’t already have this room in your home, consider installing one. You can use one of the spare guest bedrooms and turn it into a laundry room. This project might not even cost you a lot of money.

An open floor plan

An open floor is one of many home features home buyers seek. The reason is simple – this type of layout gives residents many options for organizing and decorating the space. A home divided into many rooms and hallways can look dark and claustrophobic. Therefore, an open floor plan allows more natural light into the room. If you’re looking to sell your home, consider that your vision of the space will not be the same as the buyers’. If you have any dividing walls in your house or apartment, consider removing them during the staging process. You should leave it up to buyers to have room for their own vision.

Removing dividing walls in your home can be relatively cheap. When prepping for this type of reconstruction, you might want to move out of your home if you haven’t already. You should be looking for the right moving team to handle your inventory between two homes. If you’re making a long distance move from Albuquerque, professional movers will save you a lot of trouble on your moving day.

Smart home features

Some home features that today’s home buyers are easy and cheap to adapt. However, smart home features are considered to be a thing of the future. So, if you have the budget to install them in your home, here are some examples you should have in mind:

• Security features – any smart home can benefit from added safety features. Smart security systems can help you monitor almost every corner of your home from a mobile app or on smaller screens in every room. The way buyers look at it – smart security solutions can potentially cut down insurance costs. Depending on the size of your home, this investment could be too expensive before selling your home. However, it’s still something to keep in mind if you want to attract higher-paying buyers.
• Smart lighting – you might have seen it in other homes but always wanted to have it. Smart lighting is way cheaper to install than people think. These fixtures can be turned off and on remotely or by using sensors. Besides giving a luxurious look to any home, this type of lighting also saves energy. So, it’s good for both environment and your home selling process!
• Smart thermostat and air conditioning – there are many reasons why smart thermostats are popular home features. First, these can significantly lower electricity bills by keeping the temperature in every room constant. The best part of having this system in your home is that you can control room temperature remotely. Moreover, you can do it when you’re not at home – via phone app!

Outdoor storage space

This is the last one of the home features on our list, and it’s probably the one today’s home buyers are most likely to look for. If we’re being honest, most people lack storage space in their homes in one way or the other. While there is only as much space in a home as we can adapt for storage, outdoor storage space is becoming a valuable feature. Keep in mind that many people buy a new home exactly for this reason – to have more space for their belongings. If you have a garage or an outside storage unit, this will probably raise your home’s value significantly.

Conclusion

Hopefully, our list of home features inspired you. You might not have all of them in your home, but you should consider adding some of them if you’re ready to sell. Which ones you choose will depend on many factors, so consult your real estate agent on this matter.