Top 5 ways to boost the value of your home

Article by ConsumerReports.org, January 29, 2015

“This is a great time to be selling a house—or buying one. With housing prices at recent highs (in some neighborhoods they’re exceeding pre-2008 valuations), it’s no wonder about 5.3 million homes are expected to change hands in 2015, up about 30 percent from the bottom of the crash, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Buyers as well as sellers can benefit. That’s because purchasing a home is comparatively cheap right now, thanks to still-low interest rates (they recently dipped below 4 percent for a 30-year fixed mortgage). “A home buyer with the U.S. median income who buys the median-priced home will pay 15.3 percent of their income on their mortgage now,” says Skylar Olsen, a senior economist at Zillow, the online real estate marketplace. “The historical number is 22.1 percent.” And although home prices will continue to climb in 2015, they’re expected to do so at a slower rate than in 2014.

So how do you make the most money, no matter which end of the transaction you’re on? For answers, the Consumer Reports National Research Center turned to the people most in the know for answers—the real estate professionals who broker almost 90 percent of residential sales.

A panel of 303 pros from around the country (covering markets big and small, hot and cold, city and suburban) completed our recent online survey, filled with essential questions: What are the costliest mistakes sellers make? When is the best time to put a home on the market? How negotiable are broker’s fees, really?

The answers may surprise you. If you’re a seller, advice from the pros on smart presale fix-ups, coupled with our expert product ratings and tips, can help you get the best sales price for your home—an additional 12 percent, on average. With median single-family home prices hovering at about $205,000, that’s a potential gain of $24,600. In pricier markets, the profits will go many times higher.

And both buyers and sellers can come out ahead with our guide to savvy financial and negotiating moves. Avoid the most typical mistakes and you could gain 11 to 20 percent, and even more in some markets, of the home sale’s price.

April through June is prime home-selling season.”

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