Before you sell real estate, you should consider doing some minor home improvements. You don't have to spend a lot of money, but making a few targeted improvements can get you a much higher price on your home. Here are five home improvements you can make for relatively low cost that will help you sell your home faster and for a higher price:

1. Fix the floors — Buyers prefer a hardwood floor, that's a fact. So if you have carpet in the main areas of the house, have the carpet torn out and either refinish the existing floors or have hardwood laminate floors put in.

If you already have hardwoods floors in the home, sand and refinish them or have them professionally refinished so that they look new. Making sure that the floors look great is a very smart investment when you're selling Kansas City real estate.

2. Get rid of the wallpaper — People don't want to buy a house covered in wallpaper that someone else chose. If they want to put in wallpaper, they want it to be a pattern that they pick. So get an inexpensive wallpaper steamer and get that wallpaper off the walls.

After the wallpaper is down you should prime and paint the walls a nice neutral color. Let the new owners of your home decide for themselves what they want to put on the walls.

3. Get rid of textured ceilings — "Popcorn" ceilings are old fashioned and look messy. The material used to make the popcorn on the ceiling often contains asbestos if the ceiling is original to the house.

Popcorn ceilings are also often used to hide leaks and other problems and buyers are aware of that. Pull down the popcorn ceiling and repaint the ceiling in a neutral color if you don't want to put off potential buyers.

4. Freshen up your kitchen cabinets — Did you know that you get almost a 100 percent return on any investments that you make in the kitchen? And sprucing up the kitchen cabinets is something that you need to do if you want to really wow real estate buyers. You don't have to completely replace the cabinets. Just resurface them, or repaint them if they are painted, and add new hardware.

5. Fix up the bathroom — Investing in the home's bathrooms has more than a 100 percent return most of the time so it's definitely worth the money and time to dress up the bathrooms. New light fixtures, new sinks, new hardware, and if you can afford it new tile will all bring a lot of added value to the bathrooms and will impress local buyers.

Before making any changes to your home, however, be sure that you have an understanding of the real estate market in your local area. Columbia, Missouri real estate, for example, is going to have differences in what is considered "hot" and desirable versus the same in downtown Chicago.

Consult with a local real estate agent for the scoop on the market.