5 Things That Can Hurt Your Home Evaluation

With mortgage rates rising and the Bank of Canada increasing the key interest rate, the real estate market is slowing down. Housing prices reflect that, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t get top dollar for your property. There are some important steps you can take to make sure when the home evaluation comes in, you are in an excellent position to get the number you’re hoping for.

Maintenance Upkeep

It’s easy to make a list of things you need to do to upkeep your home, but when the weekend rolls around after a long week of work, the last thing you may want to do is more work. You’ve overlooked the peeling paint, that cracked patio has gotten worse, and you suspect there’s a small leak in your roof. Until you get those issues and anything else resolved, your evaluation will reflect those needed repairs and will return a number you may be unhappy with.

Too Much You

It’s your house, your space, and you’ve wanted to share how you it is. Maybe there’s a collectables room that’s filled with built-in shelves and no room for a bed. Perhaps there’s an abstract feature wall with bright, contrasting colours. Maybe there’s even a mini putting green in your basement. Unfortunately, houses that have too much personalization will see a poor evaluation.

Too Much Stuff

If the evaluator can’t see the positive features of the house due to all the things you have in the house, they’re not going to have a positive evaluation. It might seem like an obvious thing to ensure the house is tidy and clutter-free, but one person’s tidy is another person’s hoarding nightmare. When a buyer walks through those doors, they want to picture themselves living there with their furniture and their layout. The simpler and clean the space, the easier it is for them to envision their future there. Remember that the evaluator is looking through the eyes of a potential buyer.

Location

There’s not much you can do about the location your house is in. It’s not as if you can just pick it up, put it on a trailer and move it! It’s important to know that the neighbourhood your house is in and what it’s close to or what it’s not close to will hurt your home evaluation. Maybe your neighbourhood has higher crime, or your neighbours haven’t taken care of their curb appeal as you have with yours. Maybe it backs onto a cemetery, or you’re in a flight path for the local airport. All those reasons and more are factors that will negatively impact your evaluation.

Curb Appeal

Curb appeal is a double-edged sword. On one hand, you want your yard to look well-kept and attractive, but you don’t want it to look like it’s too hard to keep up. People love beautiful yards; they don’t love having to put the work in to maintain them. Have the grass mowed to a respectable length, with trees and hedges trimmed, but avoid high-maintenance features that would turn off prospective buyers.

You might have bought your house never intending on moving, and now the house reflects that. Some of these issues that could hurt an evaluation would be easier to handle if regular upkeep was done. That’s always the best-case scenario. These are all issues that every homeowner will have to deal with at least once in their homeownership journey. With very few exceptions, none of these are irreversible, and with some extra effort, your home evaluation can have positive results.