With house values currently stagnant or even falling, improving your home may be an answer to property woes.
GE Money, one of the major providers of home loans, recently published research conducted over 110 UK estate agents. They came up with interesting figures showing the following value increases after carrying out certain residential property improvements:
| Home Improvement | Percentage increase in value to property |
| Loft conversion | 12.47% |
| Extra room via an extension | 10.78% |
| Conservatory | 6.66% |
| New kitchen | 4.6% |
| Installing central heating | 3.4% |
| New windows | 2.93% |
| New bathroom | 2.88% |
| Re-decorating all living rooms and bedrooms | 2.56% |
| New driveway | 2.2% |
| Decking of patio or garden | 2% |
| Re-flooring the entire house | 1.88% |
| Installing new solar panels | 0.8% |
The above figures are average and therefore approximate.
Unfortunately, energy-saving improvements do not yet seem to add much enhancement (scoring much less than 0.8%).
The above might add enough value to enable a move to a bigger or better home. However, if such an upgrade is still not possible, the improvements might serve to give a new lease of life to an otherwise tired property.
