There are five home improvement projects you may want to avoid, because they may end up costing you money when you try to sell your home.

If you plan to stay in your home for a long time, and want to make changes for your lifestyle, then these may be worthwhile to you, and this doesn’t apply.

The below just addresses how these projects could potentially affect you when you decide to sell your Baltimore home!

HGTV and Yahoo Finance came up with the list of five items, and they are important to think about when you are considering making a change. These recommendations are really just if you are planning to move in a short amount of time.

1) Don’t change a bedroom into another type of space. If you convert a bedroom into something else — especially if you remove walls between rooms to make a single larger room, you may want to consider changing it back when you decide to sell your home. Once you remove a bedroom, you should not try to sell your home with that considered as a bedroom. Buyers will be annoyed if they walk into a home that states that it has four bedrooms, but it really only has three. Appraisers can only count the actual number of bedrooms for value, and four bedroom homes are generally valued higher than three bedroom homes in the same neighborhood (dependent on condition, of course, as well.)

2) Don’t get a hot tub. They are expensive to buy, may be expensive to have installed,  and can be expensive to maintain. That, and many buyers don’t want them. Some are concerned for safety if they have children, others simply don’t want them. Oh, and they are heavy and expensive to remove.

3) Don’t paint trim dark or bright colors, and don’t do textured walls. Textured walls must be sanded down before being painted, and are not easy to remove. If buyers hire painters to do the work, they may charge extra to remove the texture. As far as the trim — bright, dark colors are not easy no matter what — whether the wall or the trim. Trim is generally harder to paint because it is detailed and a small space. Add on dark colors, and multiple layers to cover it, and a buyer may be turned off.

4) Avoid theme bedrooms. Again, this applies only if you are planning to move soon. Neutral colors and styles tend to speak to buyers, and a girl-themed bedroom may turn off a family with boys or vice versa — or could do so if someone has other plans for that room’s space. Buyers, in general, want to be able to picture themselves and their things in a new home. It is hard for them to envision it as theirs if there is a large amount of personalization already in the home.

5) Don’t have too much landscaping. YES, you want your curb appeal to be lovely, and you want your garden beds to be inviting. But if you have a lot of landscaping with unusual plantings, buyers may see this as too high maintenance, and realize that they may not be able to keep up with it — or have the funds to pay someone else to maintain it.

Again, please note that these ideas to avoid are JUST if you are planning to move within the next five years. The money that you will spend on the above items most likely will not get a monetary return on your investment, and may cost you more to change them to sell.

If you plan to stay in your home for a long period of time, then the above changes could be great for you to enjoy!

For ideas on what changes you may WANT to make to sell your home in Baltimore, please contact me. I would love to help!