Outdoor Features That Increase Property Values

Fire pits, pools, and outdoor showers are all features of summertime fun, and they can add a surprising amount of value to one's home.

Home sellers with outdoor showers are in for the best summertime selling fun, as homes with outside bathing areas had a 97 percent price-per-square-foot premium, according to Realtor.com's study of outdoor features' impact on home values. "Outdoor features can give a home a special quality in the market," says Javier Vivas, realtor.com's director of economic research. "And anytime you have a unique feature, it can bolster the prospective value of a home." In New York state, homes with outdoor showers add 256 percent more value per square foot than other for-sale homes in the state.

Sellers hoping to get the highest prices for their homes this summer should forget about opening up their kitchen or installing a free-standing bathtub. Instead, they should amp up their home for summer with some of the most popular outdoor features. The right ones could increase a home's value by 10 percent over comparable listings, and one extra-special amenity is worth a 97 percent premium, according to a recent realtor.com report. To come up with our findings, we scoured our listings for summer-related, outdoor features in single-family homes on the market for $150,000 and above

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