Under $500
1. Upgrade your kitchen features
If you’re looking for a place to start, you might want to begin with the kitchen. Sellers poured a lot of love into their kitchens, with upgrades that would have been considered unusual before people began spending more time at home cooking during the pandemic.
Appliances and features that became popular with home cooks over the past several years topped the list of features associated with a price premium in 2022. Among them: steam ovens, which snagged the number one spot among the improvements. Small steam ovens can be had for under $500, while wall ovens will run you several thousand dollars. The ovens may pay for themselves, however: listings that mentioned a steam oven sold for 5.3% more than expected.
Pizza ovens came in second, netting a 3.7% price premium on homes that mentioned one in their listings. Prices vary wildly for the ovens: a commercial grade oven can run you upwards of $10,000, and a residential kit for an outdoor oven can run about $3,000. But you can find some smaller portable units you can incorporate into an outdoor kitchen for several hundred dollars. Homes with farmhouse sinks in which to wash vegetables for all those fabulous pizzas sold for 1.2% more than expected.
Add a retreat space
When mentioned in a listing description, quiet rooms and personal spaces command a sale price premium of 2.5% for a “she shed.” Keep the cost affordable by creating the space yourself or decorating a shed you already own as a DIY project.
