Are you a homeowner getting ready for a home appraisal? Stick around, we're going to give you seven tips on how to maximize your home's value. Hi, welcome back to my channel. If you're new here, my name is Samantha Perlman and I'm a wheelchair located in central New Jersey. Every week, I post videos about what it's like to live and work here in guidance on buying, selling and investing in the area. If this is something that interests you, consider hitting that subscribe button below and don't forget to hit the bell so that you're notified of the new videos I release every Monday. In this week's video, I'm talking to all you home owners out there. You might be getting a home appraisal because you're thinking about going on the market. You might be looking at refinancing, you might be pulling out a home equity loan or you might be using it as collateral for another loan. Either way, you are in the process of getting home appraisal and you might be thinking to yourself, well, how can I maximize my home's value and make sure I get the highest appraised value I can? So here are seven home appraisal tips. Number one, know your competition. Make sure you have a true understanding and accurate information about what's going on in your neighborhood in your real estate market. What are things selling for? What are things listing for in terms of price? What is the condition? And how does that compare to your home both in size and condition? And it's best to use closed properties no older than six months. Number two, fix minor things around your home. Now, if you watch one of my other videos, how to prep your home for sale, include a link to it above. A lot of the things I'm talking about today, I actually talked about in how to prep your home for sale. Now, you might be watching this video not because you're going to be selling, but because you're getting a home appraisal for maybe another reason. And that's okay. So if you haven't already done so you're going to want to make any of the small repairs throughout your home. You want to make sure you don't have things like leaky faucets or loose cabinets or cracked tiles. You know, if your walls are really beat up and you've got holes in the walls, you want to fix those, fresh coat of paint, things like that. You just want to make sure that as the appraisers walk into the home, they're not noticing all of these little deferred maintenance items because that will actually bring it down the overall impression and condition of your home. Number three, crank up your curb appeal. In the same way a buyer makes their first impression upon driving up to your home and appraisers going to do the same thing. So you want to make sure as they pull up to your property and they're looking at it for the first time on the outside that you're giving it the best possible impression. Make sure there's no weeds, you've raked up all the leaves, you have no debris or extra storage or clutter in front or on the side of your house. If the time of your permits plant fresh flowers, you really just want to make sure that your overall curb appeal gives a really good first impression because your appraisers will be judging it. Number four, consider cosmetic updates or upgrades. This might be things like just putting a fresh coat of paint on the walls like I had said earlier. Changing out hardware on cabinets in your kitchen or bathroom, maybe changing out your fixtures or even your light fixtures, you know, taking out a dated chandelier and putting in something a little bit more updated modern could really make the entire space feel a lot more updated and current. Choose things that are low cost but big impact. Number five, drop a list of any upgrades or updates you've made to the home, especially in the most recent years. Things like kitchens, bathrooms, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, things like that. Anything that you've done to the property recently, create a list for the appraiser and it's even better if you can provide receipts or invoices showing not only the work that's been done, how much you actually spent on it. Now, most cases you won't get 100% of the cost back, but you should be able to get a portion of it back in terms of value for the home. Number six, clean and present the property in show condition. Whether you're selling it or not, the property should be in clean and presentable condition as if you were selling it. So make sure you don't have any clutter. Everything is picked up, cleaned, make sure to dust and clean things like sealing fans and chandeliers and the bathrooms, especially in kitchens. You want to show the property in as clean and in as show condition, I say, as possible. And this is going to give the overall impression for the appraiser that you really maintain your home very well and it's going to maximize the value on it. Number seven, now this is going to be tough for some homeowners, but you need to give the appraiser space. I understand that you as a homeowner, you want to walk around with the home appraiser and point out every nook and cranny, every update you've ever made to the home of the last 40 years that you've lived in there. This could actually be quite a hindrance for the appraiser. Not only are you slowing them down, but now you're filling their head with all of this confusing information about what might have been done to the property. And while you may have spent money on an update 30 years ago, that update is no longer relevant to today's appraised value. So they need to be able to just walk through the property with an objective point of view and assess the condition, the upgrades, the updates and the size and how it compares to market conditions. So give your appraiser space, let them walk around and have them come to you with any question. Bonus tip, tip number eight is put together an appraisal package. Now if you're getting an appraisal done because your property is being sold, then work with your current realtor to put together what I call an appraisal package. This is going to include a copy of the listing, a copy of the sales contract, a copy of any of the comparable properties that you used working with your agent to determine the sales price on the home. You're a list of upgrades and updates along with copies of invoices and receipts that we've already spoken about. The copy of the tax record, which could show things like the property size and the square footage. And any other documentation that might be important that you have such as floor plans or flood elevation certificates and things like that. Now your realtor should be able to put this together in a really nice folder, at least that's what we always do. We put it together in a folder and that's given to the appraiser at the beginning of the appointment. Again, we're not hovering over them and chasing them around and going through everything. It's just given to them as a point of reference and a lot of appraisers were actually really, really appreciate this because it saves them the time from digging around for a lot of this information. Now, if you're watching this because you're about to put your home on the market and their description box below, I've included a link to some of my other videos that you might find relevant such as how to prep your home for sale guide. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up and say hello in the comment section below. And if you haven't already done so, consider hitting that subscribe button and the bell so you don't miss the videos I release every week. I'll see you next week.