Planning To Sell Your Home? 10 Home Renovations You Shouldn’t Make

Planning to renovate your home for future reselling?

While investing in a few renovations sounds like a great idea, you must also be critical about what and what not to change in your property. Not all home improvements can boost your chances of selling your home. In some cases, they do more harm than good, driving away potential buyers and hurting your home’s resale value.

To begin with, here are 10 of the top home renovation mistakes you should avoid, according to property buyer’s agents and real estate professionals.

1. Painting your wall with a bold color
Thinking you’re going to attract buyers by painting your walls yellow? Think again.

Bright and bold paint colors can scare off your potential buyers. Put yourself in their shoes – don’t you want to see a home with crisp-white walls? Won’t it be easier to imagine how your future fully-furnished home will look like if the past owners kept the home looking like a blank canvas?

Stick to fresh paint and neutral colors. If you have wallpaper, consider removing it and repainting the walls before open houses.

2. Going overboard with customizations
Do you have that cool 50s diner look with black and white tiles? How about a trendy palm leaves wallpaper? While they speak for your style, these overwhelming design choices can be off-putting to buyers.

If the buyer doesn’t share the interest and is seeing them as something they need to rip out, you lose a chance to sell.

The rule of thumb: don’t force your view on what the house should look like and opt for universally appreciated home design and don’t

3. Having a wall-to-wall carpeting
Most buyers get turned off the moment they see carpeting. If you must replace the flooring in your home, you might as well invest in hard surfaces like wood or tile.

Again, over-personalized renovations can decrease the value of your home.

4. Any expensive enhancements that will lead to property overpricing
Splurging on a high-end kitchen? How about a luxury bathroom? Planning to have built-in high-end electronics? You might want to skip these lavish improvements when you’re planning to sell your home eventually.

Over the top upgrades hurt sellers in two ways. Firstly, the buyer might pass the offer if they’ll have to pay higher prices for high-end features they don’t need. And two, such expensive remodels don’t generate much return on investment.

5. Decorating with a built-in aquarium
While it’s a fancy home feature, it requires constant maintenance. The built-in aquarium can also be costly to remove. Not everyone is willing to care for a large tank.

6. Having additions or extensions that are poorly planned
Have you ever gone to a house where you need to walk through a bedroom just to get to the bathroom? How about addition that seems to be glued onto the side of an existing home without much thought? These examples of poorly-planned additions can destroy a home’s value.

If you’re going to add something to your home, consider getting professional help with the layout.

7. Removing built-in storage units
Built-in storage units, like closets, cabinets, and shelves, are assets. Taking out a closet to make room for another upgrade is another major mistake.

8. Adding a swimming pool
While a swimming pool seems like a luxurious home feature, it’s not the best way to attract potential buyers. In fact, most buyers don’t like the idea of having a pool and maintaining it.

9. Converting a bedroom into something else
The number of bedrooms is a major consideration in a buyer’s home buying checklist. That said, converting bedrooms into something else can drive away potential buyers. You might like the idea of converting a room into an office or a sunroom, but your buyer, who’s a family of 3 children, might rather have the bedroom space.

If you have free space, either leave it blank or make it into a bedroom.

You should also abolish the idea of combining small bedrooms to create a bigger room: the more bedrooms (no matter how small they are), the better.

10. Repurposing a garage
The same goes for your garage, which is another attractive feature buyers look for in a potential home.

For fitness buffs, converting a garage into a gym might sound like a great idea. But to the parents of four children who love going on road trips, a house without a garage is something they might pass.

Author Bio: Carmina Natividad is a resident writer for Bridge to Bricks Property Buyer’s Agent, a leading property buyer’s agent in Sydney. Her fondness for architecture, interior design, and real estate makes it easy for her to write inspiring pieces of content.