Quick, simple and cheap do-it-yourself upgrades can help sell your home faster. To make these changes, you don’t have to be a master carpenter or electrician either. Upgrade your light fixtures. Old chandeliers in the dining room, dated bathroom vanity lights or old-fashioned light fixtures on ceiling fans can be swapped quickly and inexpensively for a more modern look. Spruce up front yard plants. Remove overgrown or dead bushes and plants in...

If you set your thermostat back 10 to 15 degrees at night when you sleep, you can reduce your winter heating bill by 10%.

Like it or not, winter is on its way! These tips for getting your home ready for the cold can save you heating costs and avoid costly structural damage.  Seal the air leaks Caulking window or foundation cracks and updating the weather stripping on doors  can make your house less drafty and reduce home heating costs by as much as 10%. Test smoke and CO detectors Changing batteries is cheap and easy, but essential as winter approaches....

Summer’s a boom time for homebuying and selling—and making renovations. But if you’re thinking you could someday put your house on the market (or you simply want to see your property’s value go up), which are the best home renovations to invest in? Here are tips from a real estate veteran. 1. Make scale-appropriate improvements “Be mindful of the overall value of your house so you don’t over-renovate,” recommends...

Jay Rinehart, a realtor in Rock Hill, South Carolina, took over a listing for a house that couldn’t sell after going on the market last year. One of the things he did was ask the seller to swap out an old bathtub faucet so it was consistent with the sink faucet installed in a remodeling a few years earlier. His team also helped stage the kitchen that had been renovated.  “We got an offer within 30 days on the market,”...