Protecting Your Biggest Investment

Protecting Your Biggest Investment

Protecting Your Biggest Investment

If you are like the majority of other Americans your home is your single biggest financial asset. Therefore the fact that you need to protect that investment as best you can should be a no brainer.

Yet it's not too unusual to see someone outside their home on a Saturday afternoon lovingly washing and waxing their car for hours, completely oblivious to the fact that water is also running all down the driveway because the gutters are blocked and about a day away from falling off the house altogether.

Protecting your investment in your home is all about maintaining its value, especially when the real estate market is less than great. The value of your home is directly tied to its condition, so there are certain steps you should consider taking to preserve that value. Where best to begin?

Do Your Homework

There are many ways to preserve the original value of your home and many of them involve repairs to and sometimes the remodeling of both indoor and outdoor features of your property.

It may interest you to learn that the return on investment (ROI) you get from certain remodeling projects especially exterior ones actually varies depending upon whereabouts in the country your home is located.

According to several years worth of findings in the Cost vs Value report, a mid priced re-siding job undertaken on a home in the north eastern U.S.A. will, on average, recoup 90% of its cost but that decreases to the low 70s in the Mid West. In that region it tends to be decks and patios that offer a better ROI when discussing outdoor improvements and additions that pay.

The projected costs that could be recouped on any given remodeling project also depends on the current value of similar homes in your neighborhood and the rate at which property values are changing in the surrounding area. Even the availability and current cost of new and existing homes in the immediate vicinity can be a big factor in a project's ROI.

At this point seeking the advice of either an experienced local realtor or a general contractor working in the area is very useful when trying to determine which projects make financial sense and which are going to be mainly just for your personal enjoyment and there is nothing wrong with that.

Picking The Right Contractor

However good a certain remodeling project's ROI seems to be on paper it is only going to return the investment you expected if the job is well done. A new deck may in theory be a great idea for preserving the value of your home but if it's a shoddy DIY job with crooked beams and spotty staining that is hardly going to be the case.

Take the time to put as much, if not more, work into finding the right contractor for your project as you did choosing which one to undertake in the first place. If your family, friends and/or colleagues cannot offer you a good recommendation try using a service like Remodeling Contractor to find the best people in your area for completing any given project.

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