Are you feeling the urge to spruce up your home? The term “spring-cleaning” has been around for centuries. The idea is that after a long season of being confined indoors, you may want to give your home a thorough cleaning and sprucing up when the weather breaks.   

You may be the type of person that enjoys the regular ongoing maintenance that your home requires, but I’ve noticed that for most homeowners, keeping up can be onerous.  

Start with a capture list

The best way to start with spring-cleaning, or any major home project, is by listing out what needs to be done. I recommend building a capture list. This is where you take a clean sheet of paper and quickly list out projects as they come to mind—without considering size, cost, or difficulty.   

Once you have your capture list, review it and segregate it into categories. I have used the following for my spring-cleaning list: 

• Small Projects and Areas that Drive You Crazy 
• The Big Impossible Projects 
• Future Vision Projects 

You may find the easiest way to start is by asking yourself the magic question, which will help to transform your thinking and narrow down your list.

The magic question is: If you were to put your home up for sale, what are the things that would absolutely, positively need to be done? 

This makes it easy to get started with spring-cleaning as you can quickly categorize items and keep the Future Vision Projects from cluttering what should (and can) be completed in the short term. 

Here are a few more details from each category:

Small Projects or Areas that Drive You Crazy are typically things that you can do yourself or with a little help. This may be cleaning out closets, touch up painting, or repairing some furniture pieces. 

Big Impossible Projects may be one step beyond what you can do by yourself. These are things that likely require outside help and planning. They aren’t truly impossible, just difficult to do without some research and forethought. Examples here include tree removal, window replacement, and major painting projects.

Future Vision Projects are things you would like to see happen if you plan on being in your home for many years. It may be a room makeover, new carpet or flooring, driveway repairs/expansion, or even more ambitious projects such as building an addition to your home or adding a pool. Future Vision Projects are great to have but can sometimes delay the more pressing items that keep your home in top condition now.  

Once you have your wish list categorized, the easiest place to start is with the list of Small Projects or Areas that Drive You Crazy. You may be able to complete a few of these in a weekend. Once you have the satisfaction of completing a few small areas, you may have the motivation to tackle one or more of the Big Impossible Projects.   

There will likely be associated costs with your spring-cleaning projects. As financial planners, we have observed that for most of our clients, ongoing home maintenance is 3-5% of a home’s value. While you may not spend that every year, overtime, that is what a homeowner will spend to keep their home in sellable condition. So, while you can defer the more expensive repair and maintenance projects on your spring-cleaning list, the odds are good that they will need to be tackled at some point.  

There may be times that you just don’t have the time, money, or emotional capacity to deal with major maintenance areas of your home. This is where the benefit of having your wish list surfaces: It stays on your radar screen as a goal, even when the timing and extent of what you can do may be uncertain. 

By keeping your home in market ready condition, it will likely continue to appreciate at least at the rate of inflation. While this is significant, perhaps more important is the satisfaction of enjoying your home. I have seen many examples of people who cleaned and updated their homes right before selling, which is always sad to witness. Why not put the effort into it now? Why not enjoy a clean, updated home while you own it? Assembling a Spring-Cleaning Wish List is a motivating way to start.

Kristina Bolhouse, CPA/PFS, CFP®

President/Shareholder

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