Curb Appeal - Part 2

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about one of my favorite subjects regarding the selling of a home – Curb Appeal. It’s one of the easiest ways to improve your likelihood for selling your Saline, Michigan home this spring.

Curb appeal is the aspect of your home which a prospective home buyer can see from the curb or the street. It’s the first impression your home gives to anyone who approaches your home.
There are many aspects of curb appeal to consider, including the condition of your home (roof, trim, paint, clean windows, etc) and landscape (lawn, gardens, sidewalk(s), driveway, patio(s)). Today I’ll focus on another aspect of the “Curb Appeal” of your home – the overall landscape of the front and back of your home

If you’ve ever read the book by Steven Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, you may recall his story about a home chore which he assigned to his son. Covey’s simple point – Clean and Green – has always stuck with me, because of its simplicity and practicality for selling your home.

Despite the “green” efforts we see sprouting up all over, and those who would tell you that you should save the environment by leaving your lawn go dormant over the summer, there is no denying that a reasonably green lawn in the summer gives a better first impression than a brown, crunchy lawn.

That doesn’t mean that you have to go out and purchase an expensive in-ground sprinkling system. Instead, at Lowe’s or Home Depot, you can buy an inexpensive, battery-powered timer which turns on and off your outside water faucet. Then just lay out your hoses and sprinklers to cover your front lawn (at the very least) so that your lawn stays reasonably green. If you want to get ambitious, lay down some general lawn fertilizer to give your lawn an extra “green” boost.

When you drive down many neighborhood streets and see the various landscape efforts on the front of many homes, you can draw some general conclusions. Many people spend a lot of money on an expensive landscape design and installation, and then just leave the landscape to become horribly overgrown. There is no better way to telegraph to buyers, when they pull up in front of your home, that you have not maintained your home well than by leaving your overgrown landscape in place when you list your home for sale.

In the competitive selling environment that exists today, you want every advantage to get your home sold. It’s well worth spending a few hundred dollars with an experienced lawn and garden landscape firm to properly prepare your gardens and shrubs for their best presentation. That few hundred dollars could mean several thousand dollars more in selling price, or bring about a sale many months sooner than would otherwise occur.

When it comes time for you to sell, be sure to ask your Realtor® to help you maximize the first impression of your home’s curb appeal. It can earn you a higher sale price and a likely faster sale.