Selling your house? You’re probably up to your armpits in paint, new rugs and grout cleaner to get the place spiffed up.
Have you looked at your front yard?
Landscaping plays a huge part in selling a house.
Think about it. Potential homebuyers see your lawn, your garden beds and your front walkway long before they get a peek at that half bath you remodeled.
In fact, if your landscaping is a big turn off, they might just drive right past.
Here are 10 landscaping tips to help you sell your house:
1. Nurture A Healthy Green Lawn
A healthy lawn is important to selling your home. Potential homebuyers who see a brown, weedy lawn might assume they’ll have to tear out and sod the whole thing. Too much hassle, too much cost. You’ve lost them at the curb.
Professionals can treat your grass with a broadleaf herbicide, then green it up with an overseeding and fertilizing, so you’ll make a great green first impression.
Cost: From $1,500 to $2,500 for a typical quarter- acre lawn.
2. Perk Up Your Porch
Colorful potted annuals at your entrance add cheer and welcome. Small addition, big impact.
Don’t forget new planters when staging for selling your house. The prettiest flowers won’t impress if they’re tucked in shabby, faded or chipped pots.
Cost: About $150 to $250 per pot, depending on the planter.
3. Tidy Up Your Yard
Nothing turns off potential home buyers like weeds, overgrown shrubs and trees with dead branches.
If they spy a scraggly old 20-foot juniper growing next to the front window, they know your yard has been neglected.
If you don’t care enough to maintain the outside, they’ll reason, what kind of neglect lurks inside?
So tidy up your yard to sell your house.
A professional landscaping service can zoom over and get things looking great in no time.
A crew will prune overgrown shrubs, blow away leaves and debris, take out dead branches, remove plants that have outgrown their space and get rid of weeds.
Cost: About $1,500 for a day of work or $4,000 for a multi-day job.
4. Brighten Up Plant Beds
Bare, forlorn planting beds make a house seem sad.
Fill in bare areas with lush perennials then top them off with a nice dark layer of bark mulch. You’ll be amazed how much better your landscaping looks. Plan to stare at it for a while.
Cost: Front beds of perennials like Karl Foerster reed grass, daylilies and purple-blooming speedwell will cost between $500 and $700.
5. Repair Walkways
A cracked, crumbling concrete walkway says you don’t care. And it’s another set of repair dollar signs a potential home buyer adds to his list.
Make that approach to your front door flawless with a freshly poured walk. Or consider replacing it with attractive concrete pavers for an added beauty boost.
Cost: Between $1,200 and $2,000 to remove and replace a 15-foot concrete walk. Or between $2,100 and $2,800 for concrete pavers.
6. Set Up Weekly Mowing
If you move away before your house sells, hire a landscaping company to keep it looking great in the weeks or months while it’s on the market.
Weekly mowing will ensure potential homebuyers see your home at its best, even if you’re not there.
Cost: $40-65 per mowing.
7. Inspect Your Irrigation
If you plan to have your landscaping watered, be sure your sprinkler system works. An irrigation technician will look everything over, check for leaks and damaged heads, so watering can go smoothly while your house is on the market.
Cost: Between $75 and $150, not including any needed parts or extra repairs.
A Few More Landscaping Tips To Help You Sell Your House
We have a few more tricks up our sleeve. Attend to these details for the best showings.
Check For Leaks
Leaks and drips give the impression of disrepair. Check your outdoor faucets, hoses and sprinklers to make sure no water is escaping and that everything is closed up tight.
Maintain Your Water Features
If you have a pond out back, be sure it’s clean and the pump is working.
Many homebuyers consider ponds a nuisance and a potential danger if they have small children. If you have one, at least make sure it’s attractive and in good working order.
Same goes for any other water features on your property.
A Plain Yard Is Okay
If you have a big expanse of lawn with limited landscaping, resist the urge to add pergolas, trellises, or other extra features.
Homebuyers actually like a clean, blank slate. That way, they can envision the yard with their own personal touches that will make it their own.
Moving? Call Outback First
Does landscaping help sell a house? You bet it does.
At Outback Landscape, we have the tools, skills and know-how to spiff up your house in no time.
Your landscaping will look so great when we’re done, you might just decide to stay.
Located in Idaho Falls, Idaho, we serve residential and commercial properties in Idaho Falls, Rexburg and Pocatello, Idaho, as well as Bonneville, Madison and Bannock counties.
Contact Outback Landscape at 208-656-3220, or fill out the contact form to schedule an onsite consultation.
We’d love to hear from you.
