Adding a Guest House – the Single Best Improvement you can Make to your Property

What is the best improvement you can do to your home to increase the value? Add an in-ground pool? A hot tub? New windows and siding? Nope, none of these.

The single best improvement you can make to your home and land is to build a new house – a guest house.

The economy has been limping along for a while. Because of economic difficulties or choice, family members are living together longer. Grandparents are living with their adult children. Children are staying with parents through college and longer.

Even for those who are doing well, having a separate house for a nanny can make the job much nicer for the nanny and the family.

The best part of a guest house is that it adds value without having to make your existing home a lot larger and it’s a lot cheaper to do. Because a guest house would has its own bathroom, bedroom and kitchen, anyone living there can live a completely independent life.

Perfect for every need

For aging parents, this can mean years of complete freedom while still being close enough for family to help when it is needed. An elderly mother or father can live in one of these small houses easily. Since there is generally not a lot of square footage, the house is easy to clean and maintain. Generally all one floor, there are no stairs to negotiate, eliminating some of the worries of falling down.

Adult children are finding it harder and harder to get a start in the current economy. Jobs are harder to find and housing, especially without a lot of credit history, can be very difficult to afford. A guest house can give them the freedom they deserve while allowing them to still live at home. Because they are in a completely separate house they have all the privacy an adult needs, without the expense and hassle of moving away completely.

Nannies and servants will feel more comfortable having a private space that they can retire to at the end of the day. Not needing to be in the main house means that they can feel like their work day is actually ending, as opposed to being just down the hall from the children or family that they work for. You will be much more likely to get a higher quality of domestic help if they have their own space to live in.

Maybe you just need a place for family to stay when they visit, or a home office away from the kids and the bustling house? After all, that was the original function of the guest house, wasn’t it?

Increase your property value

Property value is almost guaranteed to increase substantially. Because family situations and living arrangements have changed so much of the past few years, there are hundreds of thousands of people in need of guest houses looking at real estate every day.

If you find yourself selling your property, you will be able to accommodate those people who are coming onto the market with the need for a guest house. These buyers won’t need to worry about having to live together in the main house while they build a separate house.

Putting up a guest house

There is a couple of ways to get the new house onto the property:

First, of course, you can build it right on site from scratch. There are all kinds of floor plans available on line for free or nearly free. Since they are one story houses and not very complex, it’s very easy to find plans that are suitable.

The second way to put a guest house on your property is to purchase a prefabricated house and have it delivered to you. There are several companies right in California. These pre-fab homes are great quality and some of them cost less than the price of decent new car.

Getting Your Home Organized and Ready to Sell

I know, de-cluttering and getting organized seems to be quite a large project, especially when you’re in the middle to list and sell your home.. The trick is to break it down into several smaller tasks. For example, when you are preparing to sell your house, it is crucial for you to organize each room. This sounds as though it is a huge daunting project. To begin such a large task, focus on de-cluttering and organizing each room, one at a time. If focusing on the entire room is too large of a project for you, break the room down into smaller tasks. Could you handle starting with the bedroom closet, and then possibly moving on to the, say, the dresser? Getting the work done in small sections is still better than not accomplishing anything at all. 

But before you can break the project into different sections, you must first decide where to start. When trying to decide where to being, it may feel impossible. Take a look at the below four steps, and you will be set to start wherever you feel best.

Pull it all out.  Regardless of whether you are keeping the item, donating it, or tossing in the garbage, remove it from the area you are organizing.

After every item is removed from the space you are working on, it is time to move furniture, and other large objects into their final positions, or as close to their final positions as you can get. Remember, you can always re-arrange things later on if needed.

Clean, clean, cleanWhile you have everything out of the room, or space, clean it thoroughly. Having everything our out of the way gives you the chance to find dust bunnies, and other dirt and debris that you would normally not see, or be able to access easily.

Do the same for each and every item you bring back into the space. After all, who wants dirt and dust particles flying around on a freshly cleaned bookshelf, especially when it’s due to the book not being wiped down.

Sort your itemsThis step is commonly seen on the popular television show The Clean House. When removing items from the space, sort them into several piles:

• Keep: This pile is for the things you are going to put back
• Donate/Sell: This pile is for the items that are still in good shape, but are not being used.
• Reuse: This pile takes items that were cluttering one room, and uses it for a different purpose in another room.
• Recycle: This pile is used for items that you are getting rid of that can be recycled. For example, if you come across a large stack of old paper that you do not need and are going to toss, throw it in the recycle pile
• Toss: These items simply need to be thrown in the trash.

Remember, you want to keep the area organized and neat. Be sure that everything has it’s own place, and does not begin to clutter the area you are working to neatly organize.  You want to get top dollar for your home, don’t you?  To do so, a potential buyer needs to be able to see your HOME, not just your “stuff”.