The Washington Post published an article about a year ago highlighting the financial gains associated with boosting your curb appeal. And, while there are certainly no guarantees when it comes to investing money into your home, there are some fairly impressive examples out there in the real world. In the last two years we have purchased two new homes for our family. The first we purchased directly from the builder whom had planted just enough pitiful looking bushes in one spot to be able to claim 'custom landscaping' in their marketing propaganda. The other, we bought from a couple who was apparently going through a nasty divorce. And, it seems that one of the areas of contention for them was not which landscape design to go with since there wasn't a single thing in the yard except for grass. Anyway, one of our top priorities after we moved in was to add some landscaping as a way to not only somewhat personalize but ultimately add value as well. Now I have the unique ability to kill even fake plants so this is clearly not my area of expertise. So, we decide to outsource this area of our lives mostly because we actually want the landscaping to look good and live for more than five minutes. Fortunately for us, we have a friend who owns a successful lawn and landscape business in this area. He scheduled a time to come check out the property, met with us about what we were interested in doing, drew up sketches of various options for us, and then met with us again to go over the plan. He even included pictures of each of the plants/trees he was recommending. He and his team are incredibly professional and do a fantastic job so check him out if you want to dial up the value on your own home.
The house that we purchased in 2014 was definitely sufficient for our family but the opportunity on the second one was so good that we jumped. And, selling our house less than two years after we bought it worked out really well as far as the timing was concerned. It's difficult to truly quantify the landscape value alone since we had done several other upgrades to the house in that time as well. But, it was a clear difference maker when we were looking at the comparable listings, especially within our neighborhood. There was another home that had the same obligatory, builder grade three bush, one tree combo just down the street that, last time I looked, was still listed for sale.
As for our current home, we definitely needed to add a little something to the grass and grass only look we had going on. With three young kids we wanted to maintain a significant amount of open space for them to run and play without fear of interruption. But, we wanted the place to actually look lived in too. And, the plan (the better you know me, the more comical this statement becomes) is for us to live here for a looong time. I'm not sure what long really means given the fact that the longest I've ever lived anywhere was five years...and that was from birth to age five. It's still the plan nonetheless. There was a recent sale in our current neighborhood that had some fantastic landscaping which had to give it the edge over a similar home that had none. And, based on the price per square foot it sold for, our home's value now that we have attractive landscaping has jumped big time. Relative to what we paid for our improvements in the yard we could potentially realize roughly 100X the cost. Even at the low end of the current assessments out there, we're looking at a minimum of 10X the return. And, just in case there is any question about it, if I could create a valuation increase between 10-100X the initial investment, I'd sign up today!
'Yeah, but there's no guarantee'...'it's not a 'real' value add unless you sell'...'it costs such-and-such amount up front'...'I'd rather have a rock garden'. Seriously though, you're losing me on the rock garden thing. Other than that, a lot of valid points. And all the same arguments can be made relative to things like the stock market as well. There are so many benefits to doing something now rather than waiting that it's ridiculous. Of course you could wait until right before you sell to update your landscaping. But, who knows what your financial situation will look like at that time. What if you're selling out of necessity rather than opportunity? Think you'll have such-and-such amount then? And why not plant today so that you can enjoy it until that day comes? Realistically, this is the closest you'll get to money growing on trees.
Next time you're out take a look around. Whether you're just walking through your own neighborhood or going for a drive, look at the homes around you and take a moment to realize exactly how much nicer those with attractive landscaping really are. If you notice any discernible difference at all, potentially others would too when looking at your home.
What are some of the common things that you find yourself drawn to when it comes to curb appeal? And what about observations that give you a negative perception of a property?
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Jefferson
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