When you purchase a house, many people like to (cynically, though truthfully) say that the value of it decreases immediately. And while that’s unfortunate to think, it’s also something that you’ll want to keep in mind. You’ll want to make sure you work diligently on your home while you own it, and especially if you’re trying to sell it sometime soon.
Here are a few ways that you can maintain your home so that it keeps its value (though it won’t ever likely have as high of a value as when you first purchased it, so always keep that in mind).
- Look out for leaks. One of the things that can do the most damage to your home, without you even realizing it sometimes, is through leaks. Leaks actually do more financial damage to your home than any other sort of damage, even including your house burning down in a fire! You can get a leak from having a pipe bursting in your wall or ceiling (this is especially possible in the wintertime, so you always want to make sure you’re especially diligent here). House bibbs can also cause leaks in places like your basement, crawl space, or inside your walls. You’ll also want to check any appliances that have water running through them, like your refrigerator, washing machine, or dishwasher, to make sure that they aren’t leaking slowly over time. It can build up and slowly destroy the floor underneath where the appliances are located, and suddenly you’ll have a mold build up and will need to remove the flooring to get rid of it. If it’s not nipped in the bud from the start, you’ll find yourself with a more expensive and time-consuming problem.
- Clean your gutters. You’ll want to make sure every spring that you clean out your gutters. In fact, you’ll probably want to do it twice a year—in the spring and at the end of fall after all the leaves have fallen, ideally. Check to make sure there are no leaves, acorns, sticks, and other gunk built up in your gutters. If you have things backing up in your gutters over time, it will get moldy and start to decompose in the gutters and shortly start decomposing your roof. Again, if you don’t take care of it early on then you’ll find yourself in a spot where you have to pay more and spend more time handling the problem. Additionally, when you’re up there cleaning out your gutters, you also have an opportunity to see if any of the nails are coming loose in your roof or if any of the roof tiles need to be repaired.
- Repair your roof when needed. Coming into this from the last point, you can start looking at your roof when you clean out your gutters to see if it needs any work. You want to make sure your roof is in tip-top shape because it’s literally over your head and a hole in it will lead to drafts and other associated risks.
Image via Money Crashers.
