Upgrades to Primary Prior to Renting

[Holly Henry]

Hi all! My husband and I are living in our current home alone after having had roommates for two years before getting married. We want to go ahead and start making upgrades to this place as we search for a new house we can move into as our primary and rent this one out. We know we need to put in new floors (our dog has messed up the carpet,) and pick out new paint colors throughout. We're also planning on overhauling our landscaping to something more polished and easy to maintain to increase curb appeal. What are the best upgrades to make that can make it appealing to future renters (either short or mid-term or long term - which I know are very different audiences.) Light fixtures? Scraping popcorn ceiling? Putting in a fence (we have dogs so we'd love this in the interim!) New dishwasher (ours is old and not the best.) Let me know your thoughts! We're exploring a HELOC for financing our next property and could go ahead and get that ball rolling to finance the renovations here.