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Can home maintenance really make a difference between getting market value for you home and getting above market value when selling? Absolutely yes, something not fully understood by many home owners, home maintenance is the single most important factor in maintaining value or even increasing home value. Maintaining home value becomes ever more important when it comes time to renegotiation a home mortgage. Although there are other factors affecting the value of a home also, when you boil it down, home maintenance is usually the common element between them. How clean is the home, do the walls need paint, what does the landscaping look like, does the furnace work efficiently? Those all fall under the category of Home Maintenance and that translates to home value, pure and simple. In an ongoing effort to maintain home value, for any home owner, a home maintenance program is the key component. A maintenance program is more than just a checklist. It shows you where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’re going, as far as equipment and facility condition and life cycle are concerned. For example, if you keep a maintenance log for your furnace you’ll have a better idea of when it might be time --- and make sense financially --- to replace your furnace instead for continuing with repairs [the Life Cycle of equipment]. When you do need to replace a piece of equipment, it won’t be such a surprise. You can plan and budget for it as well. Your home maintenance program should include a home maintenance checklist, home maintenance schedule and maintenance log for each major item. The maintenance log will help to see developing trends in repairs and costs. Use an organized filing system to store the information, as well as any receipts or contracts for each item in separate folders. Your home, in essence, is a fairly complicated structure so you don't want to leave things to memory. A preventive home maintenance program with maintenance checklists and logs does take a little bit of time and planning but in the long run it's the least expensive way to maintain value in your home and your investment. Maintain your home value with free checklists and logs available for download below.
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