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Appraiser Secrets:
Fireplaces Increase Home Value
If you are considering selling your home, applying for a mortgage,
or looking to refinance your current mortgage, there is a good chance that an
appraiser will come to determine the value of your house. So what can you do to
maximize that magic figure? What do appraisers look for?
A recent article on About.com listed six
items an appraiser looks for when determining the market value of your
house:
- Location
- Square
footage
- Bedrooms
- Bathrooms
- Fireplaces
- Construction
material
Now that you know your fireplace is a valuable asset, you can take
advantage of this by turning it into a selling point. Remodeling an ugly
fireplace might seem like an expensive or imposing task, but you have several
options that offer great returns on a modest investment of time and money.
Paint that Ugly
Brick
Compared to tearing out the entire fireplace and replacing it,
painting over ugly fireplace brick is a quick and almost painless project. Best
of all, the price—at a fraction of the cost of hiring a contractor, you can get
a do-it-yourself fireplace paint kit on the internet. This includes
everything you need to give your newly painted fireplace the look of real
brick.
Frame Your Fireplace with a New
Mantle
The mantle of a fireplace is like the frame around a picture—and
you wouldn’t put a Monet in a thrift store frame, would you? Try a hand-made wooden fireplace mantel to transform your
old, boring fireplace into the centerpiece of the room. You will be amazed at
the difference it can make. And with a little do-it-yourself elbow grease, you
can save some big bucks.
Clean It Up
One of the simplest but most effective remodels for a working
fireplace is simply cleaning the fireplace
soot and grime accumulated on the bricks. It’s like giving your fireplace a
facelift.
Remember that getting a nice big figure back from the appraiser is
only half the battle—you’ve still got to sell your house. And a newly remodeled
fireplace can help make your home stand out in an increasingly saturated
market.
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