Ever since you moved into your home years ago, you’ve strived to do whatever you could to improve its market value. It’s not that you necessarily plan on moving right away, but if you ever do sell, you want to get the full value of what you paid on the house back and then some. Should custom closets be the next addition to your home? Can these closets really boost your home’s market value?
Absolutely, custom closets can increase a home’s market value, and quite significantly at that. Walk-in closets especially are quite covetable among homebuyers, but other custom closets throughout the house are definitely desirable too.
Keep reading to learn about specific ways that custom closets can make your property an even more appealing and attractive option for buyers!
Are Custom Closets an Attractive Feature to Homebuyers?
There are many additions a homeowner might think to have done that, in their eyes, can make their home worth more money. Yet some additions are indeed valuable and others extraneous and thus a waste of time and cash.
Which is which? To answer that, some expert opinions are needed.
Forbes, in a 2016 article, listed more than a dozen home features they deemed “surprising” that inched up a home’s value. Some of the recommendations were certainly ones you might not think of, like stainless steel appliances or exposed bricks, but what was Forbes’ stance on closets?
Custom closets, especially walk-in closets, ranked quite high. One real estate pro, interviewed for the article, stated that walk-in closets and other custom closets have gone from something that buyers were pleased to see to something that they expect will be there when they tour a home.
Failing to have spacious closets could turn away some really good potential buyers. That leaves your home on the market, where it languishes and languishes. The older your listing gets, the less attention it receives, making the whole process of selling your home take even longer.
Financial resource
GOBankingRates went as far as to say that taking closets out is one of the worst things you can do if you want your home to be worth good money. Homebuyers expect closets, especially in rooms such as the bedroom. To go from a large to a smaller closet isn’t ideal but may be acceptable, yet going from having a closet to nothing will really hurt your chances of having your home sold.
How Custom Closets Make a Home Worth More
What is it about custom closets that make them such a valuable home addition? Here are some reasons these closets are a top choice among homebuyers!
Custom Closets Make Organization Easy
When potential homebuyers walk through your home, they’ll know if you can’t keep it neat. They’re going to be looking at your house up, down, and sideways, so they’ll see the clutter shoved under the couch or pushed behind the table. Even if you try to be sneaky about hiding messes, buyers will notice.
These messes will detract from what is certainly a beautiful home, and it’s distracting too. The home buyers might miss your new crown molding or living room picture windows as they focus more on the clutter.
With custom closets, keeping your home organized becomes effortless. From hall closets to even perpetually messy spaces like kids’ bedroom closets, custom closet systems create a home for everything. Innovative Home Storage cites several ways to organize your precious real estate in Six Effortless Steps to Organizing Your Custom Closets.
When homebuyers tour your property, they won’t see messes, only gorgeous home features. They’ll open your custom closets and gaze upon a space so organized that it’ll be easy for them to envision keeping their own things in there.
Having Custom Closets Shows Your Passion for the Home
The fact that you took the time to design custom closets throughout your home tells a homebuyer a lot about you. It says that you care about your home and that you want to keep it clean.
Seeing your custom closets during the house tour could be what encourages a homebuyer to put an offer in!
Storage Space is Appealing
Who doesn’t want more storage space? If you had to ask for a show of hands, almost every homebuyer would say of course they do. Some buyers might want a house because their current condo or apartment simply isn’t large enough to contain all of their stuff anymore.
Yet garages fill up, as do basements and attics. The extra storage space afforded throughout your home thanks to your custom closets is going to be a homebuyer’s saving grace. Now, in parts of the house like the hallway and the bedrooms–areas where clutter can congregate a little too easily–they’ll have all the space they need for storage and more.
Custom Closets Look Great When Staging Your Home
Everyone knows that when staging a home, you usually change some things around. You’ll remove personal effects such as framed photos. You’ll toss those never-used vanity pillows on the bed, fluff up the couch cushions, and reorganize the living room a bit so it’s more engaging to anyone passing through.
Your custom closets are made for staging. All you have to do is open the closet doors and voila, there are shelves and drawers full of organized clothes, shoes, blankets, belts, ties, and even jewelry.
Even if only one closet in your home is customized, it’s going to be the talk of the whole house tour. If you took the time and care to get several custom closets installed throughout the house, you may get so many offers you won’t be sure what to do with them all.
A Word of Caution About Decorating Your Custom Closets
If you’re still in the planning stages of ordering custom closets, then you might want to proceed with the following information in mind. GOBankingRates, in the same link from above, notes that several design touches can hurt rather than help your custom closets, possibly preventing it from being the money-maker you so want it to be.
Here are some decorative ideas to avoid.
Bold or Bright Colors
Homebuyers tend to get “turned off” by any colors deemed too wild or funky, probably because such hues can be intimidating if you don’t know what to do with them.
More neutral and natural colors are best for your custom closets for several reasons. For one, you never have to worry about shades of black or white or even baby blue falling out of style. These colors will always be perceived as modern, giving your custom closets a bit of newness no matter how old they are.
Second, loud colors can take away from how well you’ve organized everything, and who wants that?
Excess Carpeting
GOBankingRates, through a stat via Realtor.com, says that you can see a home value boost of up to 2.5 percent by leaving your hardwood floors bare rather than carpeting them. Your closet is such a small area of flooring that it probably doesn’t matter much if it’s carpeted, but it’s something to think about anyway.
Textured Ceilings or Walls
If you decide to take the space around or within your walk-in closet and jazz it up with textured ceilings or walls, you may regret that choice later on down the road. It’s quite difficult to remove this texturing if a homebuyer doesn’t like it. They may decide to buy another home with a little less flavor just to save them time and effort.
At the end of the day, it’s your house and your closets, so do what you want with them. These are just suggestions, but they could certainly help!
Conclusion
Custom closets increase a home’s curb appeal by providing more storage space and making it easier to keep your house organized. If you were on the fence about whether custom closets were right for your home, now you can see how valuable these closets truly are!
