If your home has been damaged by a flood or burst pipe, you might be worried about the effect on water damage for your property’s value of your home. This is a fair question, and there are many reasons that your home’s value might be reduced related to things like a flood or sewer backup. Between health concerns and worries about mold removal and structural damage, water damage can have a big impact on the value of your home.
A prompt response is key when you are addressing water damage that can impact home value. Mold remediation and other water damage treatments need to be done right away to make sure that your home can be returned to a safe and livable condition after the flood. The sooner that you get a team onsite to take care of the water damage and start remediating related damages, the more likely it will be that you can minimize damage to your home.
Effect of Water Damage on Your Property’s Value
Water damage impacts property owners in ways that no other kind of damage can. The only other kind of damage that might be worse is fire damage. Water damage can lead to mold, structural compromises, and issues with the electrical system in the home. Water damage can render a home completely unliveable in a matter of hours.
The sooner that you are able to start working on the water damage and providing mold remediation, the more likely it will be that your home will retain its value. Even a leaky pipe can cause major water damage, which is worth nothing when it comes to home value. The average homeowner is not aware that water damage can have such a negative impact on the value of a home. Many people do not realize that the asking price that they can seek when selling their home might be significantly reduced after a water damage event.
Water damage restoration can range in cost from $400-$100,000. If you have placed your home on the market and extensive water damage is discovered during the inspection process related to the sale, you might lose thousands of dollars on your sale. In some cases, if the damage is really significant, the buyer might walk away from the sale. You do not need to have suffered a house flood, complete with possessions floating in knee-deep water, to lose lots of money on your house sale related to water damage.
Tips for Avoiding Water Damage and Protecting Your Property Value
Knowing how to prevent water damage is important when you own a home. Being able to attend to a major leak or a flood situation rapidly can make all the difference when it comes to water damage. If you live in a flood zone, you might want to be sure that you are using all of these tips to protect your home value. Avoiding water damage is all about making sure that you are checking on various potential risk areas in your home so that you can spot potential water damage before it can impact your property value.
Know Where the Water Main Is
When you have a major leak of some kind, it is usually wise to shut off the water at the main. This will prevent water damage from further impacting your property, and it will prevent issues with your home’s electrical system as well. If you have a house plan for your property, you can easily find the water main and mark it for easy access, and shut it off as needed. Stopping water damage in its tracks is always the best course of action compared to hoping for the best and trying to locate the leak and stop it without shutting off the water.
Invest in a Leak Alert System
Leak alert systems can be a great tool to keep water damage at bay. These sensors can be placed in any location that you think might be a key location for water damage. You might want to place them in the laundry room, the basement, or any other place where you think that you could end up with water damage when cold weather strikes. Basements are a great place for these systems since they can be prone to incursions of water for a variety of reasons.
Leak alert systems are also a really great selling point for your home once it is on the market. You will have saved the new buyers money by taking care of this need before you sell and they will appreciate that you have thought of this means of keeping your home leak-free during your time taking care of the property.
Maintain Tubs and Showers
Bathtubs and showers are often involved in long-term water damage since they can suffer from damage to their seals or plumbing issues that can impact the floor spaces beneath them or the walls around them. This is often a safety risk as well as a water damage risk due to black mold growth. There are also sometimes problems with broken electrical fixtures in bathrooms related to slow water leaks that can lead to a house fire if they are not attended to promptly. Maintaining your bathtubs and showers is not difficult, and it can yield huge benefits when it comes to preventing water damage in your home.
Get Flood Insurance
While this does not apply to all properties, you are actually required to have flood insurance through FEMA if you live in a historic floodplain area. This flood insurance can help you to get back on your feet after a major flood that might cause considerable damage to your home. People tend to think that their home could never suffer water damage related to a flood, but when this kind of event happens, flood insurance can make all the difference.
Being able to restore your home to its former condition is key if you have suffered through a major flood event. You will be unable to sell your home if you have not been able to attend to the flood-related damage that happened to it as a result of natural disasters of this kind.
Check Outdoor Faucets
Outdoor faucets can actually be a key factor in water damage in homes. Winter weather can lead to these pipes cracking or breaking, and time and stress on these outlets might also cause damage to the seals inside these outlets. Leaks from this kind of faucet can be hard to detect until they have caused major structural issues with your home. Warped walls and water damage involving mold can be quite common due to faucets failing on the exterior of the home. Make sure to check on these faucets often and be sure that you protect them from the cold in winter.
Check Washing Machines and Dishwashers
Washing machines are made with hot and cold water hoses that come from a wall outlet and connect to the appliance. These are tucked away behind the washer, and it can be easy to forget they exist. This is another common way for long-term water damage to lead to warped ceilings and walls. Many people don’t even do the installation for their washing machine when it arrives and, therefore, never think about the water connections that might be causing consistent dripping if they have failed or come loose.
Dishwashers are another appliance that most people forget to check on related to water damage. If you think that your dishwasher might be leaking, stop using it until someone can come and pull it out and check for water damage under it or behind it. The sooner that you attend to this kind of potential leak, the more likely it will be that you can attend to minimal water damage that might impact your property value down the road.
Preventing Water Damage is Key When Looking to Protect the Value of Your Home
If you think that you want to put your home on the market at a future date, or you are actively in the process of getting ready to list your home for sale, prevention of water damage is key to making a good sale. You cannot expect someone to buy your home for the full asking price if there are major issues that need to be attended to related to water damage. Water damage impacts property value so significantly because it can be connected with major structural issues as well as health hazards.
Always be sure that you are checking on outdoor plumbing outlets like hose faucets, that you are checking the connections to appliances on a regular basis, and that you are regularly checking on the condition of your home’s basement. Also, be on the lookout for odd smells or warping in the floors or the walls of your home. The sooner that you attend to issues in your home related to water leaks, the more likely it will be that you can sell your home for its full value when the time comes.
The effect of water damage on your property’s value can be large. You need to be on the lookout for this potential damage and find effective ways to fix it and keep your property safe.