5 ways to boost home value—even if yours isn't underwater

Nearly 40 percent of homeowners with second mortgages—the kind tapped for home improvements—now owe more than their homes are worth. And 18 percent with one mortgage are also underwater. Depressed home prices make essential upkeep critical, since flaking paint and other eyesores drive down value even more. The good news: Consumer Reports latest tests yielded a wealth of paints, flooring and other products that can help you keep your home equity afloat.

Interior paint
Our top-rated interior paint (hint: it's as close as your local Home Depot) covered with just one coat. It also saves work and labor costs, since it goes on without the usual prime coat. For sunny rooms, we also found excellent paints from Benjamin Moore and Valspar that resisted fading.

Quick tip: Avoid sabotaging your home's salability down the road by picking bright colors with broad appeal. Chartreuse in the kitchen, coral in the bathroom, and denim-blue in a family room are examples of "in" colors that are also high on buyers' lists.

Exterior paint
Two self-priming exterior paints were excellent performers—and one is available at Lowe's. There's no shortage of other great offerings from other brands in our Ratings.

Quick tip: Picking colors that harmonize with your home's natural settings helps maintain resale value. Like brighter hues? Save them for easy-to-repaint doors and shutters.

Flooring
Realtors continue to feature hardwood flooring in their listings, with oak playing a starring role. Bruce Dundee Plank Natural CB1210 oak flooring ($5.70 a square foot) was the only prefinished solid-wood flooring to score Excellent for wear in our flooring tests.

Quick tip: Don't rule out bamboo. In our flooring Ratings, two brands that cost only a little more than the Bruce flooring outscored it in other key categories like resisting stains, scratches, dents and fading in sunlight. Hint: Buy stranded bamboo, which is denser and has done better in our tests than non-stranded products.

Countertops
Realtors also wax poetic about granite's solid appeal to homebuyers. But it was beaten out in our countertop tests—which gauged resistance to heat, cutting, abrasion, staining and impacts—by quartz (engineered stone). Like granite, quartz costs roughly $40 to $100 per square foot. Unlike granite, quartz never needs periodic sealing, saving you work and money.

Quick tip: Try finding a full-sized stone countertop at a salvage or reuse shop. Or use a remnant on a smaller, visible area like an island. Also consider laminate countertops, which start at as little as $10 a square foot.

Cabinets
If your old cabinets are still structurally sound, they can be refaced—or you can try refinishing them yourself and adding new hardware.

Quick tip: Before painting, cabinets will require a thorough cleaning with a degreasing agent, sanding and priming. For more details, watch the $5,000 kitchen makeover.

As we reported in Five home repairs you shouldn't ignore, deteriorating roofing and siding, pest infestations, leaks, mold and mildew, and foundation cracks can cause thousands of dollars in damage and put your home's value in the cellar.

—Gian Trotta