Here’s 4 Thrifty Steps to Landscape Your Home For Better Curb Appeal and to Improve the Value
If you talk to a real estate agent about what sells homes the quickest, the first thing you will hear from them is curb appeal. Great curb appeal gets the best price and also will bring in the most looks. An often overlooked aspect of curb appeal is an eye-catching landscape. A fantastic yard can do more to sell a home than almost anything. It is the first thing a prospective buyer notices when they ride by. Fortunately, it does not have to be expensive when you follow some thrifty tips.
Here are some inexpensive fixes and projects for your yard that will increase the value of your home:
1. Start with the Basics
A decent looking lawn is a must when it comes to curb appeal. You don’t need perfect sod to sell your house, but you don’t want the lawn to be an eyesore either. Developing a good lawn from grass seed is not easy, but it is a lot less expensive than sod. Start a first seeding in the fall and then seed it again in the spring. If you do the lawn yourself, you will save a virtual fortune.
If you are having trouble with the lawn, get free expert advice from your local home improvement store or nursery. Most people that work with lawns are happy to share advice and tips for people that want to do it themselves.
2. Look for Items to Repurpose
There are countless items that can be recycled or repurposed to improve your landscaping. Old bricks from a building that is being demolished can make a wonderful edging for flower beds. An old broken down wheelbarrow can be repurposed into wonderful mid yard planter. A quick search online will reveal countless ideas in this area of landscaping.
3. Buy Perennials
When you populate the flower beds, make sure that you are buying plants that are appropriate for the climate. Also make certain that they will come back year after year. While you may be hoping to only see them for a short time, your home selling experience may end up taking longer than you expected. The last thing you will want to do is buy new flowers year after year.
End of season sales afford you excellent opportunities to accumulate beautiful perennial flowers and plants at ridiculously low prices. These sales start long before the actual end of the growing season.
4. Stay on Top of It
No matter how nice the landscaping is to start with, if you have dead flower blossoms or weeds peeking through the mulch, everything you’ve done is wasted. Do the labor yourself and keep up with the weeding, mowing and trimming. That alone will save you a great deal of money over time.
These 3 things should not be done as you won’t get the bang for your buck!
Some landscaping expenses are not right for the thrifty person trying to improve his curb appeal and sell a house quickly. Skip the following options to save yourself some time and aggravation and put your efforts into the things above instead:
1. Adding Trees –Trees are beautiful and certainly have their place, but a significant portion of potential buyers could view them as a detriment. They often require maintenance and when they get large enough they can send roots into the sewer lines. Trees also can present problems with falling limbs. stick with smaller shrubs and other landscaping that will be less maintenance and will not block the view of the home.
2. Intricate Landscape Designs –Although it is possible to create a wildlife wonderland in your backyard, some potential buyers may not appreciate your vision. Intricate landscape designs can look very much like an overgrown mess to some. These projects are usually quite costly and could end up costing you are a home sale in the end. Keep it nice and basic and focus your energies on simplicity and cleanliness.
3. Fancy Paint Jobs – Painting is a good idea if the home actually needs it. What is not a good idea is choosing complicated painting schemes and wild colors. Never alienate a portion of your buying audience via style. While you might have the latest and greatest in home interior, the bottom line is that you are trying to sell a home. The widest appeal will go with the most basic colors.
What tips do you have to improve the value of your home on a no or low budget?
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Theresa Palmieri
I obtain “starts” of plants that I like from local friends and neighbors for improving my landscaping. I also use a variety of movable planters, in various sizes, so that I can grow some things from seed and transplant as they grow larger, and until I find just the right place for it to grow permanently.
Helen
I am so glad that you included the last suggestion as well as the three things NOT to do when you want the landscape to increase your home value. The idea is to stay simple enough to save money, but to look very nice and well maintained. As it was stated in the article, you don’t need to make a brilliant natural wonderland, but it is the little things that can completely change the aesthetics. A nice curved pathway lined with small shrubs can, for example, break up the monotony of straight lines and corners.
Ivy Baker
This is some really good information about good landscaping. I liked that you talked about how adding in trees can really help improve your home’s curb appeal. I have been thinking about selling my home lately. So it might be smart for me to get a professional to fix up my landscaping, and add in a few trees.
Steward Jones
Great tips Cassie! We don’t need to be a license contractor to increase the value of our home.
Amanda
Your advice is more useful than ever, very valuable. As well as when changing the purpose of the site, and when improving the territory, remove those plants and trees that interfere with the use of the territory for its intended purpose. Services like this one https://treeservicesantaclara.com/ are just an integral part of this process
Henry Grant
Looks great, but it doesn’t look like modern gardens. Unless if it is located outside the city and is located on a large territory. I’m interested in landscaping, but I will use help from https://avantilandscaping.ca/landscape-design-in-markham-avanti-landscaping/ contractor. They provide really cool ideas and options!
George
I agree with you, trees can really be very dangerous! They always need to be looked after so that it does not accidentally fall on your house or fence, as I did. Not knowing about the companies that clean trees, I didn’t do anything, but after the fall, I realized that it would be better if I called a company that would help remove extra branches than repair the fence completely, and also pay for tree cleaning, here is the company I used very polite people work here. I hope no one will have this type of problem, but save the link anyway https://treeservicesanramon.com !
Jibber
Creating a beautiful landscape at home is not a problem now. Even if you don’t have any specific ideas, you can always find interesting options and samples on the Internet. Personally, I prefer turf for my backyard which is sold in rolls at Turfstore. But many people prefer to plant lawn seeds, and it’s cool that they can buy seed mix online in the same store. It doesn’t matter where you live, because this store provides nationwide delivery.