Fixing up a house

<<>> Fixing up a house could be the best way to increase your home value, but make sure you make the correct improvements. Here are four things you should check before you fix up your kitchen.

Make sure that you paint the exterior of your home. Nothing makes a home look worst than when the paint is falling of the siding and peeling of in potato chip sized chucks from around the window seals. FHA will require you to pant your home so if you are tying to sell your home this is more critical than updating your kitchen, because you will have to scrape and paint your home (pre-1978) before the loan will close. If your home is not going FHA, the peeling paint shows a major lack of maintenance.

If you go outside and your roof is missing shingles or the shingles looked like freshly baked potato chips all curled up on your roof, you will need to replace your roof. I understand that this is expensive, however this type of improvement left undone will make it harder to sell your home and harder to get financing.

If you make any improvements to your home, make sure that you get the proper permit history for your home. The lender will require you to get the proper permit history. Any improvements that you start and you do not finish opens up bags of worms that you just don’t want. Make sure any projects you start, you finish. Make sure you get permit history. I can’t tell you how many homes that I go to and find half finished flooring, trim, kitchens, bathrooms and siding. Many times, the bank will reject these loans until you agree to finish what you’ve started.

Make sure that your hot water tank, heating and cooling systems work properly. Look, it doesn’t matter how nice your kitchen is, if your heater does not work. Make sure that your heater works and all other systems inside your home. Make sure that the water will turn on and run and that the water will get hot if you turn the knob to hot.

This seams pretty basic, but I just went to the home where the home owners updated their kitchen and the bathroom, but neglected to fix the roof or paint the exterior of the home and started projects such as installing new doors, etc that did not get finished. Before they can get an FHA loan, some of this stuff must be finished. So while the kitchen looked good, the basic improvements to pass FHA and to get a home loan were not completed.