This is a guest post written by Susan Melony.

There are many reasons you may need or want to increase your home’s value.

If you’re planning on selling your home in the near future, for instance, then taking steps to increase its value on the market as much as possible would definitely be preferable.

But even if you’re not planning on selling your home anytime soon, you very well may a few years down the road, so it wouldn’t hurt to make some improvements now anyway.

Here are the top five strategies for increasing your home’s value:

1 – If There’s One Room To Improve, It’s The Kitchen

If you’re only going to be improving one room in your home, there’s no question that it should be the kitchen.

The reason is simple: the kitchen is arguably the most important room in the home. Or at least, that’s how many homebuyers perceive it as being because it’s essentially the center of the home where everybody can gather.

Needless to say, the kitchen is going to be one of the first places that potential homebuyers check out when they come for a visit. A simple renovation such as replacing an appliance or re-doing the counters would go a long way.

2 – Clean Up Your House

A clean home is always a more appealing home. That being said, cleaning up your house and keeping up with the maintenance can do more than just make your house look better.

It can also help to make it worth a little more too. For example, if a room or closet is developing mold in the corner, that’s definitely something that you’ll want to take care of because otherwise the home’s value is going to take a hit.

3 – Don’t Neglect Small Improvements

There are a number of ‘small improvements’ that you could do around your house to dramatically increase its value as well. For example, repainting a wall or a door may seem like something that’s rather meaningless, but that’s also an upgrade that can have a positive effect on how people perceive your house.

Another idea would be to replace the window treatments if they’ve become old or faded. Blinds.CA has a list of many examples of cordless blinds and shades that you could choose from to give your house a more modern look.

Yet a few more ideas would be to add wallpaper to a wall, to change the lights in a particular room, or to add shelves to the kitchen or master bathroom.

4 – Don’t Forget About The Outdoors

Who says that only the inside of your home can be improved? What about the outside?

After all, it’s the outside of your home and the surrounding property area that people will first see. Therefore, you should absolutely ensure that the exterior of your house is well-maintained. The trees and brush should be properly trimmed, and if you have a garden it should be well up-kept.

You can also expand your living space outside by adding a patio or a deck of some kind if you don’t have anything already. Even a swing or a hammock of some kind on the front porch would add a lot of appeal. People love outdoor spaces, and you don’t want to allow any of it to go to waste.

5 – Hire A Home Inspector

If you are going to be putting your home up for sale, then you will absolutely need to hire a certified home inspector who can conduct a check-up on your house and tell you exactly what you need to change if you want to improve its value.

In fact, you could even hire a home inspector if you aren’t going to be selling your home. But as long as you are going to be selling, you’re going to need to hire an inspector before you can put the house up for sale.

Hiring an inspector even if you aren’t selling your house could be a valuable investment because, being trained and experienced professionals, they can detect things that you otherwise may not have been able to (such as if there’s mold or rot that you had previously overlooked).

Increasing Your Home’s Value

While there are definitely other avenues you can take to increase the value of your home, any of the five strategies that we have just outlined and discussed will be a great opportunity to get started.

Sean Cooper is the bestselling author of the book, Burn Your Mortgage: The Simple, Powerful Path to Financial Freedom for Canadians, available now on Amazon and at Chapters, Indigo and major bookstores, and as an Audiobook on Amazon, Audible and iTunes.