Making a good first impression with your home starts with increasing it’s “curb appeal.” Curb appeal refers to how visually attractive your home appears when seen from the street. It’s often the first glimpse potential buyers experience, sometimes craning their necks while driving past. Curb appeal is a crucial part of home selling. Remember, you’re not just selling a house, you’re also selling the environment that cradles it, like an oyster shell cradles a valuable pearl.
Curb appeal extends beyond mere selling. It’s also a form of home improvement which makes your home more cost-effective, more comfortable, and a value-add to your neighborhood. Here are 6 straightforward landscaping tricks that are guaranteed to increase your home’s curb appeal.
These 6 Straightforward Landscaping Tricks Increase Curb Appeal
- Plant trees — Healthy, well-situated trees obviously increase curb appeal by making your house prettier, but did you know that the property value increase of trees can be assigned a dollar value? It’s because trees provide benefits that can actually be measured. They reduce pollution and energy costs, and help save water.
- Install outdoor lighting — A 2013 survey about what home buyers really want by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) found that 49% of respondents believed outdoor lighting was a “desirable” exterior feature. 41% deemed it “essential.” Don’t forget that some buyers will see your home for the first time at night. They’ll enjoy the curb appeal of outdoor lighting, particularly if it’s soft and tasteful.
- Define lawn edges — Clean edges give the impression your lawn is low maintenance, a great selling point for any aspect of your home. Defining edges is as easy as using a sharp spade to make a clear separation between the lawn and your driveway, your flower beds, or the sidewalk. Edges can also be defined with physical barriers like stone or plastic.
- Weed and mulch — Stay on top of weeds, obviously, and mulch your plant beds wherever possible. This is a straightforward way to increase curb appeal, since mulch also gives the appearance of beds being easy to maintain. It also helps control weeds.
- Landscape with native plants — Native plants increase curb appeal because they make your home look more a part of the local environment. They’re friendlier to local wildlife, and can save you thousands of dollars annually in upkeep costs.
- Plant a garden — Curb appeal is partly about appearing industrious. What looks more industrious than a productive flower or vegetable garden? And don’t forget the huge appeal of fresh, locally-grown produce these days. This is a pretty straightforward trick to increase your home’s curb appeal.
When selling your home, you should definitely increase curb appeal. But adding curb appeal also raises the perceived value of the whole block. Building curb appeal is part of being a good neighbor. It’s a sound strategy for a good homeowner, a nesting instinct that helps the local environment flourish. Straightforward landscaping tricks like these are a simple way to up your curb appeal, and the resell value of your home. Plus your neighbors will like you better, and what homeowner doesn’t want that?