A well-designed and maintained landscape around your house is a great way to add curb appeal and value to your home. Whether you are in the market to sell your house, or you are planning to stay for a long time, landscaping is your chance to make a great first impression. In fact, landscaping is often overlooked as a way to up your home’s worth, but it can increase the value of a home by as much as 10-12%. Here is how to get a great return on investment from your landscaping.
Create A Landscaping Plan
Have a landscape design plan before you get to work. If flower bed and plant placement are not well thought out, it will look disorganized and unprofessional. For best results, work with a landscape designer or landscape architect. If you want to do it yourself, make a sketch of how you want your yard to look and stick to the plan.
Add A Variety Of Plants
Landscaping with a wide variety of plants is attractive and adds interest to your home. Pops of color are friendly and inviting, adding instant curb appeal. Larger perennials and shrubs should also be incorporated in order to give the landscape a more mature feel. If a yard has mature trees and plants that are thriving, that can be an indicator of a well-cared-for home. Mature trees and shrubs greatly increase home value, so it is super important to protect them from pests and diseases with a professional tree and shrub care program.
Keep Grass Green And Healthy
A lush, green carpet of grass adds value to your property. No one wants to see a sparse, weedy lawn that is not well maintained. To up that curb appeal, begin a turf management program as soon as possible and get your lawn in great shape. In fact, investing a few hundred dollars in lawn care services can have a more than 300% return on investment! It is also super important to follow good mowing practices including: don’t mow in the heat of the day, only mow when the grass is dry, don’t cut the grass too short, and sharpen your mower blades regularly. This will avoid damaging your grass.
Improve Outdoor Living Space
Real estate agents tell us that comfortable outdoor living space is on the top of the list for a lot of homeowners. If you have room for it, an outdoor kitchen or all-season deck will make your home attractive to a much larger pool of buyers. Weatherize the space properly for your climate so that it will last. Consider adding a fire pit in cold climates or fans in hotter climates.
If you have a small yard, try to include a spot for outdoor dining, as this is important to many buyers. Invest in updated outdoor dining furniture and make the space look cozy and inviting. There is no doubt that including an appealing and practical outdoor space for homeowners to spend time can really increase the value of your home.
Install an Automated Irrigation System
An automated irrigation system is a large expense upfront, but it can save a lot of time and money in the long run and increase the resale value of your home. Once you set up a modern irrigation system, you really don’t have to think about it, as timers and sensors that water only when necessary take the guesswork out of irrigating your landscape.
Landscaping Ideas To Sell A Home
When you are preparing to put your home on the market, it is easy to forget about the outside. You want your potential buyers to be wowed by curb appeal. Some important things to do when landscaping to sell include:
- Consider the trends in your neighborhood. Don’t go over the top if other homes in your area have modest landscaping, and don’t present high-end buyers with a home that is poorly landscaped. When in doubt, low-maintenance gardens and flower beds are always a good idea.
- Make a great first impression with your front yard by creating a walkway to your front door that is clean, free of cracks, and well landscaped.
- Prune and clean up the landscape for an instant refresh that doesn’t cost a lot. Remove dead or overgrown limbs, trim shrubs, and bushes, and replace any plants that are on their last legs.
- Add new mulch to all of your garden beds for a clean look, and make sure that all of the edges are well defined.
- If you don’t have any, plant annuals for a pop of color and fill in any gaps in the current landscaping with larger perennials.
- Be sure to keep the lawn mowed and edged. An overgrown lawn does not send a good message to potential home buyers.
- Install landscape lighting for security and to highlight your trees and gardens at night. If you don’t want to spend a lot of money, solar lighting is affordable and earth-friendly.
Landscaping Features that Can Decrease Your Home Value
Now you have a pretty good understanding of what you should do with your landscape to up your property value. But did you know that there are actually some landscaping features that you should avoid, as they can actually bring down the value of your home? Some landscaping projects that are unappealing to potential home buyers include:
- Water features. While a water feature can be a unique addition to a landscape, many people see it as high maintenance and would want to remove it if they did purchase the home.
- Fruit trees. Fresh apples, pears, or cherries from your own backyard sound great in theory, but most people would rather just head to the market. They know that fruit trees require pruning and maintenance, harvesting, and can attract pests.
- Artificial turf. While it may seem like a great low maintenance option to some, artificial turf is a turn-off to many prospective buyers. When it comes to grass, people want the real thing, and they will consider the cost of replacing it when they put an offer on your home.
- Sports court or oversized concrete patio. These features can be great for your family, but taking up potential yard space with a sports court or too much concrete will probably narrow your pool of buyers, instead of expanding it.
If you want to invest in some home improvements in order to increase your property value, landscaping is a great option. A well-maintained lawn and thriving, mature plants, are important no matter where you live. To get started on increasing your home’s curb appeal, contact us today to learn about our lawn care and landscape services.
