Landscaping to Sell Your Home

Leveraging Your Yard To Sell Your Home

First impressions for homebuyers really are everything. While this can be applied to your entire home that you are trying to sell, it is most important to remember about your curb appeal. When potential buyers first see your home for sale, they want to see something nice and inviting, well-kept and well-maintained. Ideally, you should improve your landscaping and spruce up your yard (or yards—don’t forget about the backyard, too!) before your home is listed and pictures are taken, and it should be maintained until you sign those papers and sell.

Here are 5 tips for sprucing up your curb appeal before selling your home:

Mow the lawn and edge along driveways and walkways. Okay, this might seem like and obvious one, but it’s also an incredibly easy fix. Potential buyers don’t need to trudge through 6-inch grass just to get to the front door. It’s amazing how much difference that edging the sidewalks and driveways can do for the ‘well-maintained’ appearance of a home.

Pressure wash your surfaces. Is your driveway half green from the pollen of that tree? What about your brick or siding? Pressure washers are fairly inexpensive and easy to rent from your local hardware store, and can do wonders for taking the years off of your house.

Paint looking dull? Give the siding or shutters and extra coat of paint to brighten things up. Make sure to stick with relatively neutral or calm colors—not too many people are drawn by fuchsia homes. While you’re painting, give a nice fresh coat to your mailbox and add new numbers to the house.

Do some landscaping. Ferns, flowers, trees, potted plants. Whatever you put will add some instant color. Add some fresh mulch to those flower beds, and trim all those hedges nicely. Have a garden gnome collection? You might want to put that in storage!

Have a porch? Add some cozy furniture to make potential buyers want to live in your house. The idea is for them to imagine themselves in the space. Same applies for the backyard—a nice backyard table, a grill, and a tree swing could all be nice touches. Make sure you don’t clutter things up, you want to play off of the space and make it seem large and functional.