Niemiera, a horticulturist at Virginia Tech, found that a well-landscaped house had a price advantage of 5.5 percent to 12 and 7 percent over a house without gardens, say Chase and Patti Michels, of the Chicago Michels Group real estate agency. Landscaping can add tens of thousands of dollars to the value of your property. In fact, it's one of the few home improvements you can make that not only adds value immediately, but also increases in value over the years. While interior decoration and design concepts tend to go out of style and mechanical systems wear out, plants grow fuller and more robust over the years.
Home prices vary widely depending on location, and so does the impact of poor landscaping. Matt Ward, real estate agent and team leader of The Matt Ward Group, based in Tennessee, says that lighting also helps maximize the curb appeal of your property, ensuring that all the gardening work you've invested in can be seen at any time of the day. Instead of putting your house up for sale and risking having it standing up while you fix your garden, consider working with an out-of-market buyer. As you start your spring gardening projects, don't forget the effect they can have on the value of your home.
Sellers can get 5% to 12% more value for their home (depending on the location of the property) with a well-maintained landscape, adds de Jong. These types of landscapes often eliminate the need for irrigation, which is a definite attraction at a time when the cost of water is skyrocketing. Before you start digging holes and planting trees, it's important to understand the effects of landscaping on property value. It's important to make sure you balance your gardening for different times of the year, so the next time you go to the local nursery, don't just choose what's in season, ask about the plants found throughout the year to maintain their curb appeal as the climate changes.
Poor drainage in a property can cause both safety risks and a landscape of suffering that impairs the value of the home. In addition to saving homeowners money on water bills, this type of landscape requires much less daily maintenance. This advantage ranges from 5.5 to 12.7 percent, depending on the type of landscaping and the original value of the home. The best thing about the effect of landscaping on property value is that it doesn't require doing anything additional.
For example, cutting fresh edges around plantation beds; having a sharp, well-defined border between grass and mulch or soil gives the landscape a professional look. According to 43% of real estate agents, poor landscaping has a “very negative impact on the value of a home”. Standard lawn care and landscape maintenance topped NAR's list of the most important investments to prepare your home for resale. Planting trees is the only gardening project that almost all experts recommend to increase the value of a home.
First impressions count, and when a buyer sees your home for the first time, the curb appeal and care for the landscape are the first indicators of how well the home has been cared for.
