How Landscaping Affects Home Value

Are you looking to sell your house within the next year or two? While most people work hard to make the interior of their house enticing, it’s equally important to beautify the outside. Use your landscaping to increase the curb appeal of your house–after all, a welcoming exterior will attract many more potential buyers and increase your home value.

Did You Know? Great curb appeal can raise the value of your house by 5-15%.

Landscaping is much easier and less expensive to alter than interior renovation, and increases in value as the years go on and your plants grow bigger and fuller – unlike interior renovations, which can decrease as design concepts go out of style.

Easy Ways to Increase Home Value

Try some of these methods to create a lovely and welcoming exterior.

• Make a great first impression.
  The front of your house is the first thing potential buyers see and can have a significant impact on their mindset going into your home, as well as what they perceive your home value to be. With a welcoming front yard, you will have buyers falling in love at first sight. Add a cute gravel path, a birdbath or fountain, maybe a vine-draped arbor.
• Design your landscape with a similar style to your home.
  A complementary design concept between your landscaping and your home creates harmony. Add symmetrical paths and gardens to a modern geometric house, or whimsical plants with climbing vines to a house with natural accents. Add a fountain to a stately colonial or a stone birdbath to a captivating cottage.
• Color sells.
  Build flower garden beds and window boxes, filling them with colorful annuals that will brighten your landscape without breaking your bank. Annuals are inexpensive and easy to swap out with the seasons. When you use your flowers to match the color scheme of your house, your entire property appears connected and has a natural flow to it.
• Plant some trees.
  They are one of the most versatile yet permanent landscape additions. Build swings and treehouses for children, or use them to relax in hammocks or enjoy a shaded meal al fresco. Trees make a house seem more homely and can lower your heating and cooling costs (see our post on sustainable landscapes to learn how).
• Create privacy around your property.
  Natural light sells well, so houses with many windows have great value. However, no one wants strangers or nosy neighbors peeking into their home! Building tall fences or “living walls” with shrubs will increase privacy while not limiting the house’s natural lighting.
• Keep edges sharp.
  Well-defined landscape elements provide structure and result in a nice neat look. If you have grass, soil, or mulch spilling out of beds or encroaching on areas where they aren’t meant to be, it can look sloppy and untended. This applies to the edges of your shrubs as well–keep them trimmed and neat so they don’t end up looking unruly.
• Add exterior lighting.
  This will ensure that whether future buyers visit your home in the morning or evening, your house will look appealing. Invest in small spotlights to show off your house or specific landscape elements, and string bulbs around borders and along paths to guide visitors around your yard. Lighting is especially helpful when trying to sell in winter, when darkness falls earlier.

Big Earth Landscape Supply is the Tampa Bay area’s premier provider of residential and commercial landscaping tools, brick pavers, natural stone and overall inspiration for lawn and garden. Visit us online today, or visit one of our 4 area stores.