The cost of home maintenance

Apparently property experts say that home owners should be spending 1% of their homes value on home improvements every year. This was discussed in a very interesting article by Sarah Edworthy who has found out in her own life, what happens if you don’t do the maintenance. 

The article states that, according to Land Registry figures, an average house in the UK costs £162,109, therefore this would mean we should spend £1621 on home maintenance annually. But Sarah and her family learnt the hard way what happens if you don’t bother with the upkeep, as for ten years they concentrated on bringing up their children and didn’t put money into their house.

Recently, when they had a valuation done on their property they were told that the value could have been 15% highter if the condition of the house had been better maintained. And 15% equals quite a lot of money in anyone’s book!

The article goes on to quote Robert Barr from Kerr & Co as saying “Be vigilant to the need to keep your home in good condition — not in terms of what is in vogue, but good old-fashioned internal and external maintenance”.

“The longer-term cost of not keeping up a cyclical maintenance programme will be a lower property value and a higher bill when you do carry out repairs. Prevention is better than the cure”.

These are wise words, and we should all learn from Sarah Edworthy’s experience. Depending on the size of your house, if you can aim to refurb one room a year plus an extra ‘area’ such as front or back garden, or maybe a hallway or utility room, this will go some way to keeping on top of maintenance. But don’t forget the exterior of the property as well. Seemingly small problems can easily escalate  into something a lot more costly.

Don’t forget, if you need to find a tradesman to help with your home maintenance, whether it be clearing gutters or tiling your bathroom, you can get up to 5 free quotes from insured, reliable tradesmen via our Find a Tradesman page.