Improve to make your cash go even further

Often, the home improvements that most appeal to buyers are also the ones that make your home more enjoyable to live in, which is good news all round.

Adding living space is one of the best ways to improve your home and increase its value.

If you’ve outgrown your home and you can make it bigger by building an extension or converting the loft, cellar or garage, doing the work is often more economical than moving to a larger property and gives you an opportunity to create living space tailored to you and your family.

However, be careful not to extend your home in the wrong way.

For example, if you’re converting the loft to create an extra bedroom and there isn’t enough living space downstairs to support the total number of bedrooms, you’ll be making the house too top heavy.

In areas where parking space is limited, having off-street parking makes parking the car a lot easier, as well as adding value to your home and making it easier to sell.

However, investing in off-street parking is often only worth doing in some areas - usually expensive urban ones.

You may need planning permission from your local council to convert your front garden to off-street parking, and some councils are cracking down on this, as hard driveways aren’t good for drainage.

Click on the interactive house at www.planningportal.gov.uk for information on what you can do without having to apply for planning.

If you’re concerned about resale, it pays to ask local estate agents whether the work you’re considering is advisable.

They should know if you’d be spending more than the finished article would be worth and if you’d be spending your money on the wrong home improvements.

Modernising a home stuck in a different decade is always going to add value and make it more sellable and nicer to live in, but what should you concentrate on if you can’t afford to do everything at once?

Central heating, preferably with a modern condensing boiler, is a must these days, especially if you’re thinking about selling your home.

Homes without central heating are often chilly, and installing a new boiler and radiators is an expensive and disruptive job, so it’s not something many buyers will be prepared to take on.

It’s often said that the rooms that most sell homes are the kitchen and bathroom and, again, this is because replacing them is expensive and disruptive - it’s not easy being without either while they’re being updated.

Day to day, replacing a dated kitchen or bathroom with a modern one will make a big difference to your life, and you can fit a new one inexpensively if you have to, although it’s not hard to splash the cash.