Tips for Increasing Your Home’s Value
The road to selling a home can be a long one. Learn to improve the value of your home based on your budget with these 30 tips.

Tip 1: Spend an Hour With a pro

Invite a realtor or interior designer over to check out your home. Many realtors will do this as a courtesy, but you will probably have to pay a consultation fee to a designer. Check with several designers in your area; a standard hourly fee is normally less than $100, and in an hour they can give you lots of ideas for needed improvements. Even small suggested improvements, such as paint colors or furniture placement, can go a long way toward improving the look and feel of your home.

After the recent pension reforms and the admission of many retirees that they will be investing some if not all of their pension pot in buy-to-let property, the sector’s appeal has been well documented.

Demand from tenants remains high as homeownership levels continue to fall. Just this week a study of 2,000 tenants carried out by L&Q reported that 80% of respondents said they felt they had no other choice but to rent property.

As well as tenants, the number of landlords in the UK increases year-on-year and is currently around the 1.5 million mark. What’s more, a survey published this week by large estate agency chain Your Move found that a quarter of 1,200 landlords want to purchase additional rental properties this year.

The study also found that 60% of respondents think it is a good time to invest in buy-to-let, up from 54% six months ago. It’s clear to see that competition has increased and will continue to do so.

With all of this in mind, it’s vitally important to make sure you are providing your tenants with the best quality accommodation possible – something your monthly rents can reflect in the long run.

And if you ever decide to sell up and buy another rental property in another location, having high standard accommodation will allow you to achieve a better price in the sales market, a win-win situation all round.

Here are five things you can do to increase the value and standard of your property to let…

1. The kitchen rules

As you may have read in recent times, these days the kitchen is now the focal point of the average British home, with numerous studies showing it as the room worth the most per sq ft. A clever kitchen revamp could add as much as 5% to the value of your property. Accessible, open and stylishly designed kitchens are the order of the day but it is important to remember who your target tenant is (see point 5). New worktops and appliances may be more suitable than a completely new kitchen, though, as often you will not be able to fully recoup the significant financial outlay in your property’s value.

2. Internet connection

These days any survey of prospective homebuyers places internet access or access to reliable broadband at the top of the list of desired qualities when looking for a new home. Tenants are no different. Depending on your location, there may be nothing you can do to improve the internet signal that your property can access. However, making your property as internet-friendly as possible will increase its appeal to buyers and tenants and in turn enhance its market value. Check your speed and speak to internet providers to find out if there is anything you can do to facilitate this.

3. Property facelift

You may have come across many a property supplement or estate agent telling you that a lick of paint or spring clean could increase the chances of selling a property. Well, when it comes to prospective tenants’ and buyers’ impressions, giving your property a facelift really does make a difference and could significantly benefit its market value in the long-term. Redecorating to a high standard in neutral and inviting colour schemes is key. Not to mention tidying up the garden and the front of the property.

4. Garage utilisation

Does your property have a garage? If so, what is it used for and could it be turned into living space? Many garages up and down the country are neglected and this is valuable space to a landlord. If your property is a House in Multiple Occupation, the garage could present the opportunity to take in another tenant. On the other hand, it could provide more living space for a family of tenants and your monthly rents can reflect this. As well as providing you with an opportunity to have a clear out, converting the garage could contribute to increasing the value of the property if you ever look to sell.

5. Who are you targeting?

When thinking about making any change to your property, no matter how subtle or small, it is imperative that you consider your target tenants. If you are looking to fill the property with a family you will need to focus on the kitchen and garden and making sure the property will make parents and their children feel at home. On the other hand, if the student market is your preference, homeliness may be less important but it may be more valuable to focus on space and furnishings.

 

ref.link: http://goo.gl/EOhSnT

A hot topic that has gotten people talking lately centres on the proposition that high Internet speed or more specifically Fibre Internet, increases property value. Research in the US and the UK highlights the positive correlation between the two.

When google launched its gigabit Fibre service in July 2012, Google Access General Manager announced that a direct Fibre Optic connection to a home will improve the home value by between USD2,000 – USD5,000. A recent study by Wichita State University noted that “Kansas City housing market is clearly on the rebound” and that home values were expected to rise 2.7 percent in 2014, roughly a year after Google Fiber came to the city.

Verizon (USA) on its website cited a 2008 study conducted by Park Associates: Multi-Dwelling Units (MDUs) residents estimated the rental value of a standard (2-bedroom, 2-bath, 1,000 square foot) apartment offering Verizon Fios Fibre Internet to be an average of 5% more per month than one offering DSL/satellite/cable services. This study supports academic researcher Gabor Molnar from University of Colorado, whose 2013 study found that “…The presence of fiber-based broadband was associated with a positive effect on property values in the neighborhood… Fiber availability may drive real estate prices upwards…”

There has been an explosion of demand for Fibre Internet in recent years. For instance over 1100 cities in the US are in line with requests that Google introduce Google Fiber in their municipalities. Cities that fail to get picked for Google Fiber are looking for ways to either build it themselves or partner with someone who will do it for them. “It’s getting to the point where, if my neighboring community has a gig and we’re still doing satellite, the property value in that town is going to go up,” – Deb Socia, director of Next Century Cities a coalition of cities working to provide Gigabit Internet services to their residents.

In the UK, broadband speed is now regarded as the “fourth utility” after gas, water and electricity, said BBC property expert Henry Pryor. “I was involved with a survey that looked at the impact of broadband speed on people looking to buy or rent and the potential impact on prices and we found a home without at least a standard broadband connection could be worth up to 20 per cent less than a comparable property,” Mr Pryor said. “A property needs 21st century connectivity. More people are making decisions to work from home fulltime or even part of the time. More demanding buyers now want Fibre-Optic superfast speeds for things like streaming entertainment and managing a host of equipment that relies on this.”

According to a study of British homebuyers, a good broadband connection now tops off street parking and access to local amenities as one of the vital deciding factors for people buying a new house. The study also found that one in ten buyers have walked away from properties with poor internet connection and that broadband is connected even before gas. Home owners in London are also willing to pay up to 8 per cent above the market price for properties in areas offering very fast internet speeds. Statistics compiled over a 15-year period, from 1995-2010, show that property prices across the UK increase on average by about 3 per cent when internet speed doubles.

Website Rightmove.co.uk has added broadband speeds and availability to its lists of houses for sale, and the information is attracting 400,000 page views per month. Around 3,000 of its users have reported that speedy broadband is now more important than transport links or schools. One estate agent lamented that a buyer pulled out of bidding on a £6m house in the Cotswolds, England because the internet access was so poor. “Some buyers have the broadband tested and subsequently pull out because it isn’t fast enough,” says Rupert Fisher of real estate agency Savills.

While demand for high-speed Internet in Australia is ever increasing, the actual fibre roll-out is a different story. NBN Co has plans to use the existing copper in MUDs to deliver the ‘last mile’ connection to apartment units rather than utilising full Fibre connection as it had done during a trial roll-out phase. This unfortunately would eventuate in less than stellar speed performances. Even more unfortunate when other telcos are using similar technological approach. Only MUD residents in Australia privileged enough to receive true Ultra-Fast speeds rather than ‘up-to’ speeds could conceivably see their property value going up as in the US and UK.

References:
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/print-edition/2012/10/05/tech-firms-will-go-residential-to-tap.html
http://gigcommunities.net/closer-look-property-values-gigabit-internet/
http://realestate.wichita.edu/draft/research/Web/Forecast/2014/WSU%20HOUSING%20FORECAST%20KANSAS%20CITY%202014.pdf
http://communities.verizon.com/residential-properties/

Home

http://www.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2014/07/InternetSpeed.aspx
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/broadband/10671273/Slow-broadband-wipes-20-off-house-prices.html
http://www.silicon-flatirons.org/documents/conferences/2014-04-29%20LA%20Cable%20Workshop/Molnar-Preliminary%20Evidence%20from%20the%20Deployment%20of%20Fiber%20on%20Real%20Estate%20Prices.pdf
http://www.sccialphatrack.co.uk/assets/Benefits%20of%20Fibre%20to%20the%20Home%20v2.pdf

 

ref.link: http://goo.gl/frZgxK

We’ve written before about the move to over-the-top OTT streaming applications and the need for increased bandwidth, especially among younger renters and condo buyers. Further research shows how faster Internet availability can add homeowner value. As recently as April of 2014, RVA Market Research and Consulting conducted a national study that found that fast internet/broadband was rated the single most important home amenity amongst condominium owners and the most important media amenity amongst both owners and apartment renters.

The same study also found a distinct correlation between overall resident satisfaction and the availability of Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH).  Buildings with FTTH service have lower churn rates and residents are more satisfied with reliability, consistency of speed, upload/download, and video streaming experience with their service. Let’s say you’re convinced that you’d like to offer faster service at your building. What are your next steps?

Partnering with CondoInternet as a service provider can be part of the solution. We believe in building for the future, are committed to making ongoing network and equipment upgrades to ensure that we continue to offer market-leading speeds and performance. While gigabit is today’s standard, we’ll continue to push ahead to provide 10 gig and whatever the future standards will be.

CondoInternet brings fiber to your property and provides all of the equipment necessary to deliver a best in class customer experience. However, we use existing wiring to deliver our service to residents. At this time, cat5, cat5e or cat6 wiring is needed to enable a gigabit connection. If you’ve got cat3 the best we can do is 100 mbps and if you’ve got even older phone wire, we may not be able to provide high-speed service.

The clear link between the availability of FTTH technology and resident satisfaction illustrates the importance of equipping every building with the proper wiring to support FTTH technology. Bob Bush of BnB Cable Contractors estimates that approximately 50% of buildings built before 2000 in the Seattle area are wired with coax, cat3 wiring, and even in some cases older traditional phone lines. Most of the time, coax lines are used exclusively by cable providers in the building and cat3 lines only support 100 Mbps speeds at the fastest via Very-high-bit-rate-digital-subscriber (VDSL) line technology. There are a number of different wiring methods to provide gigabit speeds to individual units. At CondoInternet, we can provide gigabit service in buildings with cat5 or newer  wiring,  delivering service to each individual unit via Ethernet cable.

The Cost Concern 

For apartment and condo management teams, there is the question of whether it is worth the money to invest in an upgrade to provide FTTH. The cost of re-wiring is roughly $300 – $600/unit. Wondering how quickly your building could recoup those costs? We’ve done the math.

For an apartment building with a 100-unit property, and at an average cost of $450/unit, you’re looking at a cost of $45,000 total. According to a study by RVA Research, the availability of FTTH positively influences rental value by 8%. Assume the average resident pays $1000/month for rent at an apartment community. At $450 per unit, the cost to re-wire could be recouped by an 8% increase in rent over just six months. For condos, the perceived increase in value is roughly 3%. So, at $450 cost to upgrade each unit, a condo worth $300,000 would increase in value by $9,000 to a total of $309,000. The $450 upfront cost to wire the unit pays off 20-fold in just one year.

Convinced the cost will pay off but concerned about the execution? Our team can offer input on build plans and introduce you to vendors who will do the actual construction. Throughout the process, we stay in touch to make sure everything is going according to plan and quickly bring our service in when the re-wiring is complete.

Success at the Highlander Condos

Last year, we partnered with the Highlander Condominiums, a 64-unit condominium complex on Capitol Hill, built in 1965. The original wiring at the building – 1960s-era phone lines – could only support a 5mbps download connection through DSL, and the more modern coax was being used for DirecTV TV service. After an increasing number of residents and potential buyers brought up questions regarding the availability of high-speed broadband in the building, the building’s HOA started looking into alternative high-speed internet options. Says Ian Bergman, a member of the Highlander HOA Board: “What we saw in the last few years, as far expectations of residents – was that it [slow internet] had become less and less acceptable. A number of new buyers were coming in asking ‘What data services are available to me?’ and no one is happy when your answer is ‘low-speed DSL.’”

In Fall of 2013, the Highlander HOA approached us to ask whether we could offer our gigabit internet service over the building’s existing wiring and if not, what steps needed to be taken to upgrade the wiring in order to deliver it. Upon surveying the building, our technicians quickly discovered with the members of the Highlander HOA suspected – the building had no adequate conduit in place to bring cat-5 or better ethernet cabling from a central access point to each individual unit. After getting a successful majority vote from all the owners in the building, the Highlander began the process of upgrading their wiring – completing the process in about four months. Residents the building are thrilled to have a new option for an internet service provider.

Today, brokers  feature the availability of gigabit service from CondoInternet at the Highlander in housing listings and can tell buyers that – with their new wiring- the building is able to offer the best of all worlds: 2015 technology plus the charm of a vintage building.

The Future

With device usage increasing exponentially, the transition to FTTH in apartments and condos is becoming inevitable. Imagine future homes where the heating system operates by voice command through smart appliances which connect via the internet. These, and other smart home integrations, may not be far off. Upgrade your wiring to provide what the tech-savvy resident wants now, and what the resident of the future will require.

 

ref.link: http://goo.gl/nVuFC3

“Houses without a connection or slow download speeds can be worth up to 20% less, say estate agents”

Houses without broadband could be worth as much as 20% less than comparable properties with a good connection, according to experts who say superfast speeds are increasingly important to prospective homebuyers.

With soaring numbers going online to perform everyday tasks or to work from home, a robust connection is considered so vital that the property search website Rightmove has added a broadband speed checker button to every one of its listings, alongside details of transport links and schools. Estate agents report that rising numbers of buyers are willing to pull out of a deal if broadband is not available in that area.

Bernard Phillips, the head of consumer platforms at Rightmove, said: “We already offer a number of tools to help consumers make informed decisions about a property, and we’re pleased to be the first to add broadband speeds to this. Broadband has become ingrained in people’s lives and is an important factor when choosing a home.”

Yet many households – particularly those in rural and hard-to-reach areas of the UK – remain stuck on sluggish speeds of 2Mbps (megabits per second) or less. That can make anything aside from sending and receiving emails a struggle. The government’s rollout of the superfast network to reach 95% of the UK, promising downloads at more than 30Mbps, has been pushed back to 2017. The latest figures from the communications regulator, Ofcom, show that 73% of the country is currently able to access these speeds.

This is despite the fact that broadband is now regarded as “the fourth utility” after gas, water and electricity, according to property expert Henry Pryor. “A home without at least a standard broadband connection could be worth up to 20% less than a comparable property,” said Pryor. “The more demanding buyers now want fibre-optic superfast speeds as, whether working from home, streaming entertainment or managing the stack of equipment that now relies on this, a property needs to have 21st-century connectivity.”

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Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, which has seen a 27% rise in the number of people seeking help over broadband and internet issues since April last year, said: “A poor internet service can shut people out of contributing to the national economy, and people living in rural areas can find unreliable internet a particular struggle.”

Frank Speir of property buying agency Prime Purchase said: “Seven or eight years ago, the issue of broadband speeds was never brought up by clients. Six years ago they started mentioning them as something nice to have, and now it is absolutely fundamental to many buyers that they have fast broadband.”

One client buying in a small hamlet of four houses just outside Oxford went so far as to club together with neighbours to lay four miles of cable to get high-speed broadband, he added. “It cost them £50,000 each, but they considered it worth it, as it enabled them to work from home and would also make the properties far more attractive to buyers in the future.”

Charles Birtles, a buying agent working in Wiltshire and Hampshire, said: “Recently I had a client who was moving from London to Hampshire and a condition of the sale was internet speed. Unless the seller could prove that his home has access to high-speed internet, he would not proceed with the purchase.”

This follows news that Ofcom is consulting on performance targets that BT Openreach must meet – or face possible fines. Openreach, which manages access to the UK’s copper telephone network that underpins almost every broadband connection, has been heavily criticised by customers for being mismanaged and understaffed. Thousands of households have complained that they face waiting weeks or months to be connected to broadband.

Ofcom stipulated that from next month Openreach will have to repair around 67% of reported faults within two working days. It will also have to provide an appointment for around 54% of new line installations within 12 working days. By April 2016, 80% of problems will have to be dealt with within those time constraints.

 

ref.link: http://goo.gl/Hhp8dY

House hunters in London may be willing to pay up to eight per cent above the market price for properties in areas offering very fast internet speeds.

A range of factors have an impact on house prices such as location, amenities and proximity to good schools. In the first study of its kind, a team of researchers from Imperial College Business School and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) have analysed the value of broadband to English households, looking at the link between property prices and broadband availability.

The statistics compiled over a 15-year period, from 1995-2010, suggest that property prices across the UK increase on average by about 3 per cent when internet speed doubles. While the increase in value is even greater when starting from slow internet connections, an increase from 8 to 24 megabits per second raises is associated with an up to one per cent increase in the property value.

The researchers analysed over one million properties across England to reach their conclusion. They compared properties that were similar in terms of area, size and access to amenities, but which had different quality internet connections. They found that houses with good, fast internet access – by virtue of being close to internet supply hubs – had higher prices than similar properties that were further away from those hubs.

According to the researchers, Londoners show a greater willingness than the rest of the country to pay for broadband, reflecting very high usage in the capital city for both work and personal reasons.

The willingness of some house hunters in London to pay a premium for good internet coverage strengthens the case for rollout of high speed broadband in densely populated areas, argue the researchers.

Currently, internet connections are provided via Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as telecom and cable suppliers but there is growing pressure on governments to intervene and make high speed broadband universal, especially in rural areas.

The European Commission has set a target that by 2020 every European citizen will have access to at least 30 megabits per second of internet connections and at least 50 per cent of households should subscribe to connections above 100 megabits per second. However, according to the National Audit Office, the UK government’s rollout of superfast broadband to rural areas is about two years behind its original schedule.

Professor Tommaso Valletti, co-author of the report, at imperial College Business School, said:

“Many factors impact on the price of a house such as area, amenities and transportation links. Our study is the first to look at how broadband can also affect property prices. This study shows that when it comes to the access to the internet, speed matters. In this digital age a fast, reliable broadband connection is important; more of us are working from home and using an internet connection to stream TV programmes, make video calls and to browse the web. The EC has set an ambitious target for all European citizens to have access to high speed connections. Private provision alone may not be able to supply fast enough connections to people across the whole country. Governments need to intervene so that everyone can have access to high speed internet.”

The team suggest that the findings of the report could be used by governments to help make the case for rolling out high speed broadband.

 

ref.link: http://goo.gl/HZ34Kt

Super-fast broadband can help the sale of your rural property, but if BT is dragging its heels, try cutting out the middle man.

When Philip and Claire Bull moved into their five-bedroom house, The Gables, in the village of Stoneleigh near Coventry, they found they had the broadband speed of a sloth. They contacted BT, who said they would have to dig a whole new line for them and the cost would be prohibitive. “They didn’t want to upgrade our village because they said it wasn’t economically viable,” said Philip.

Luckily the village was enterprising. It applied for a grant from the Rural Broadband Community Fund, a pot of money set aside for hard-to-reach areas, and in September last year the 300 households of Stoneleigh turned from a broadband not-spot into a broadband hot-spot.

Philip and Claire have had no problem selling their home through Knight Frank, and as they look for a new house they won’t look at anything without speedy broadband.

“The days of logging on just to check emails are over. We want to download masses of data, films, and get constant news updates. It is ridiculous that BT has been contracted to produce a universal service but won’t do it when it is not worth their while. It isn’t as if we live on the side of a mountain. We are four miles from Coventry.”

The thirst for fast broadband is increasingly becoming a stumbling block for house buyers, particularly those moving from London to the country who hope to work from home. Knight Frank’s recent Rural Sentiment Survey found that around 70 per cent of those questioned thought it was a big issue.

“Work which involves moving large amounts of data can be tortuous, and watching television online is frustrating without fast broadband,” says Andrew Shirley, head of rural research at Knight Frank, who carried out the survey. “Given the growing number of people who would like to work from home, and the increasing volume of entertainment that is delivered online, good broadband will become ever more important to property buyers.”

So important is it that the website Rightmove has added broadband speeds and availability to its lists of houses for sale, and the information is attracting 400,000 page views per month. Around 3,000 of its users have reported that speedy broadband is now more important than transport links or schools. One estate agent moaned recently that a buyer pulled out of bidding on a £6m house in the Cotswolds because the internet access was so poor.

In north Somerset, where recent floods emphasised the need for digital communications in times of crisis, residents have set up a private community company called Wansdyke Telecom CIC (Community Interest Company), which recently dug the first trench to supply fast broadband to Newton Farm Shop in Newton St Loe. “Government money available is not being given to small alternative network providers,” says director Matt McCabe. “We want to raise money from the local community to provide the service. You can raise private sector or hedge fund investment; in Durham they have set up a cooperative. Our goal is to fibre-up every property in north-east Somerset in the next few years. We have a small army of champions for the cause.”

In the past decade, Somerset has attracted wealthy buyers. “The Chew Valley is hoping it could be a new Silicon Valley, as it is a fantastic place to live and work once it gets good connectivity,” says Matt, who runs a smallholding on the edge of Englishcombe, just outside Bath. “We don’t want to get left in the digital slow-lane where broadband speeds are so low that kids can’t play on their Xboxes, parents can’t Skype and videoconferencing is awful.”

The problem is that BT has a monopoly (Virgin Media offers super fast speeds, but in limited areas) on delivering faster broadband and has directed resources to urban rather than rural areas, leaving parts of the countryside with chronically slow speeds. BT is also intent on providing fibre-to-the-cabinet, which serves the street or area, but then relies on old-fashioned copper connections to reach individual homes. Small-scale alternative providers believe fibre-to-the-property provides a much better service.

Lincolnshire (apart from the North East) has the slowest broadband in the country – so slow it could take 25 hours to download a two-hour film – and estate agents have noticed that it puts a brake on house sales. “Some buyers have the broadband tested and subsequently pull out because it isn’t fast enough,” says Rupert Fisher of Savills in Lincoln.

One Lincolnshire village, Ashby de la Launde, invited an outside company to lay a fibre optic ring main around the streets after BT had said it was not economically viable to do so. The village set up a company, Fibrestream, to manage the project, which cost £100,000. This will be recouped by residents contributing £125 each to connect, plus a small monthly payment. “The 100 Mbps network speed in Ashby de la Launde makes it a more appealing place to live, especially as more people are choosing to work from home,” says Rupert. “It allows them to live a little bit farther away from a train station, and provides a better quality of life.”

Cornwall has not fared so badly. “There is a programme in place to bring superfast broadband to the county,” said Jonathan Cunliffe of Savills in Truro. “We get asked a lot about broadband by buyers who are between work and retirement. In fact broadband speed, combined with the six daily flights between London and Cornwall, is making people think they can move their whole life and family here, rather than just thinking about it as a holiday destination.”

 

ref.link: http://goo.gl/nbe1d7

Homebuyers now rank a fast broadband connection above off-street parking and local amenities when considering a new property, a poll reveals.

Homebuyers now rank a fast broadband connection above off-street parking and local amenities when considering a new property, a poll reveals.

Modern movers rely on the internet so much for work and leisure that a good connection speed can even add 5 per cent to a property’s value.

That adds a staggering 15,000 pounds to the value of a typical 300,000 pounds house.

Indeed 19 per cent ensure broadband is the first new service they activate when moving in – placing it ahead of gas, 10 per cent, and TV, 8 per cent.

Electricity is the only utility to be given a higher priority, with 21 per cent seeking a supplier first, the study by broadbandchoices.co.uk found.

And estate agents have revealed house adverts showing broadband connection speeds secure double the number of viewings.

One in five homebuyers have checked broadband speeds when evaluating a house before they have even walked around the area.

And one in ten have rejected a potential new home because it had a poor connection, the study of 2,000 homebuyers found.

Knowing a property has good broadband speeds is routinely ranked as more important than off-street parking, access to shops and a nearby pub.

The local road network, public transport and mobile phone signal strength also ranked lower.

Furthermore, 54 per cent considered broadband speed before moving in but just 37 per cent looked at the crime rate.

The government recently announced a 114 million pounds investment in key cities to ensure Britain has the fastest broadband in Europe by 2015.

But speeds currently vary hugely across the country, with the difference having an impact on the property market.

Miles Shipside, from Rightmove, said: “In this digital age, a fast broadband connection is becoming much more important for home-hunters.

“People don’t just rely on a good internet connection for web browsing, but also streaming television and working from home.

“As the consumer technologies which rely on the internet expand, the need for a strong connection will be added to more home mover wish-lists.”

Independent estate agents Delaney’s, from Braintree, Essex, found adverts displaying broadband speeds secured double the number of viewings in trials.

And online adverts which included the speed alongside house price and number of rooms attracted 40 per cent more page views than those without.

Rob Delaney, from Delaney’s, said: “As with good schools and south-facing gardens, people are now on the hunt for homes with fast broadband.

“It is a sign of the times.

“But we were still really surprised with the results of our trial.

“We’re now displaying broadband speeds on all our property details because it’s clearly what customers are looking for.”

As well as making a property more appealing, the study also revealed broadband could add to the value of a house.

One in five prospective buyers, 18 per cent, said they would be happy to pay more for a property with a good connection.

A third claimed they would pay between two and five per cent extra.

Dominic Baliszewski, from broadbandchoices.co.uk, said: “When it comes to buying a home it seems it’s more a case of broadband, broadband, broadband than location, location, location.

“Broadband has become something people are not prepared to live without, so it’s little wonder it’s now such a major factor for homebuyers.

“It’s much like a central heating system or running water.

“It is very easy to check broadband speeds in a specific area so we’d urge potential home buyers to do this rather than be left disappointed.”

First-time buyers Charlotte Frost, 24, and Matthew Anderson, 26, dismissed one of their favourite shortlisted properties due to its slow connection.

Charlotte, from West Byfleet, Surrey, said: “We had looked at numerous houses within Surrey and had fallen in love with a small cottage in Cobham.

“We thought it was ‘the one’ and were about to sign on the dotted line when my boyfriend asked about the internet connection at the house.

“The estate agent admitted he didn’t know, so we spoke to both the seller and did independent speed tests online for the postcode and found it was very poor.

“It was a real shame because it was otherwise perfect.

“But it was a massive factor for us given that Matthew often works from home.”

 

ref.link: http://goo.gl/hORQLw

Depreciation is a technical term used by the Internal Revenue Service to describe the process of writing off a capital asset’s purchase price over time to simulate its gradual decrease in value. The IRS won’t let you depreciate personal residences, so you can’t take advantage of this write-off for your personal home. Since they also don’t allow you to depreciate land, you can’t use it for a residential investment property, either.

 

ref.link: http://homeguides.sfgate.com/residential-land-value-depreciate-72175.html

Generally speaking, depreciation is something that you use to write down the value of long-lasting assets that you acquire for business or investment purposes. For example, a business might depreciate its computers or its fleet of vehicles. Real estate investors depreciate buildings, whether they are large skyscrapers or single-family rental properties. Homeowners can even claim a depreciation write-off if they use a portion of their home as a rental property or if they have a designated home office.

 

ref.link: http://homeguides.sfgate.com/happens-sell-house-depreciated-41474.html