Curb Appeal

Not only does a nice yard increase your home’s value, but it also catches the attention of buyers. It’s called curb appeal. When potential buyers are scrolling through house listings or driving through neighborhoods, the houses with nice yards always catch the eye first and keep the attention. Getting noticed and having a positive image from the start is crucial to getting your home considered and sold.

If you’re aiming to jazz up your curb appeal, a visually pleasing landscape will do the trick. Curb appeal is the very first message people receive when shopping for homes—and sometimes it’s the only message they get. When buyers see a listing with a neglected or unappealing yard, they may not bother looking at the house at all. Alternatively, if the yard has a pretty design and is well-kept, they will be drawn to check the house out.

Ask any realtor you know—curb appeal sells homes faster and for more money. What potential buyers see first affects whether they want to see the rest of the property and if so, the attitude with which they see it. The yard often reflects on the state of the house. Houses with unkept yards are often not well-maintained on the interior, either. Having a tidy and pretty yard will encourage potential buyers to look past minor flaws in the home and set them up to have an optimistic attitude about the house as they view it.

Good curb appeal in the form of an attractive landscape helps sellers stand out from their competition. If there are two homes in the same area that are pretty comparable in size, quality, and characteristics, the one with the nicer yard will attract more attention and be more desirable.

Sentimental Appeal

More than just appealing to the visual sense, a pleasing landscape may strike a sentimental chord with potential buyers, as well. Pretty yards lead people to visualize living there and when they see beautiful yards, they picture their future.

We’ve all heard of people (and maybe some of us are those people) who have bought a house simply because they fell in love with an aspect in the landscape. For example, a couple sees a giant oak tree in the backyard and pictures building a treehouse and hanging a swing in that oak for their kids. Sure, the house could use a little fixing up, but they’ve fallen in love with that oak tree, so they’re sold. Or maybe you’ve got a great vegetable garden in the backyard, or the most beautiful flower patch! These things sell. They create positive feelings and stir up happy memories and hopes.

How Much Money Can You Expect?

An attractive landscape drives up your home’s value. Most sources say that there is an increase between 5-20% of your home price, depending on how well-designed your landscape is. So, let’s do the math using 15%. If you’re selling a $500,000 home and you have an attractive yard, you could make $75,000 more on your home sale! The return on investment for landscaping your yard can be between 200-1000%! Definitely a powerful investment.

What Sells?

Here's some more good news: in order to increase your home value through landscaping, you don’t need to have big, flashy things like pools and decked-out outdoor kitchens. Having an attention-grabbing landscape can be done without dipping deep into your savings account. We’ll share some of the top things that catch and keep potential buyer’s attention.

Unity

Having unity in your landscape is one of the most important things you can do to create a polished yard.  All of the areas in your yard should complement and be united with each other, and they should all tie in with the architecture of your house, as well. If you’ve got a powerful, formal home, a casual, scattered yard may look messy and out of place. It’s important to note the general feel of a home’s architecture, as well as some of the key details.

If your home has a lot of arches, mirroring that with curved planter beds can help contribute to the cohesive feel of your yard. Playing off the color palette of your home and reflecting that in your gardens is a great idea, as well. It doesn’t need to be exactly the same to match, but when your yard and your home complement each other, the curb appeal increases.

Balance

Balance is achieved when visual weight is evenly distributed. Large, dark trees carry a lot of visual weight where wispy, pale flowers are visually light. By having a good blend of plants with various colors and forms and textures, your yard will look more balanced. Repetition also helps—try to have the same plant repeated in different parts of your yard. This contributes to a more balanced yard that looks like it’s all one part, instead of a bunch of segmented parts of a landscape with different visual weights.

Year-round Color

When you are planning out which plants to install in your yard, make sure that you’ve got something bringing color year-round. This will enable you to sell your home whenever you need to, and the landscape will always be there to boost your curb appeal. Pay attention to when plants bloom, install some evergreens, and play with colors or textures that look good at various parts of the year.

This can be a creative part of the planning process. If you live in a climate that gets cold and snowy in the winter, you’re not limited to evergreen conifers for winter color. Some plants (like willows, cherry trees, dogwoods, etc.) have showy bark that looks beautiful even after the leaves have fallen. Having a selection of plants that look good, no matter the season, improves your yard and drives up your home value.

Maintenance

 Keeping your yard well-maintained is arguably the most important part of curb appeal. This doesn’t need to be a massive ordeal, but good general upkeep is a must. Keep the lawn maintained, add a nice layer of mulch to your planter beds, pull weeds, re-seed bare patches in your lawn, and glance over your yard to see what parts need a little shaping up. A little elbow grease can go a long way in boosting your selling price.

In Summary

Landscaping can have a tremendous impact on the impact that your home makes as well as its perceived value. To get the best price for your home, you need to follow a plan and take care of your yard. Work with a professional designer or use Simplyscapes design software to plan a design that is balanced, cohesive, and has year-round color. The money, time, and energy you invest in creating a lovely yard will pay off many times over, whether you choose to stay and enjoy your yard forever, or if you’re planning to sell. A well-maintained yard with a beautiful design increases your home value greatly and is always worth the investment.

To learn more about our recommendations for landscape design, check out our blog!