Sundance Realty LLC

SUNDANCE REALTY

Turn the Curb Into Buyer Appeal

July 05, 2021

by Amy Collett

When it’s time to put your home on the market, one of the first things you have to focus on is curb appeal. Curb appeal is pretty easily summed up as how your house looks from the street. If you have neatly trimmed hedges and a vibrant green lawn, you are on the right track. However, as most of us emerge from a cold and dark winter, our exteriors can use a helping hand. Keeping your flowers, shrubs, and trees tended to can boost curb appeal and even raise your home’s appraisal value. Here’s how you can make your home’s curb appeal an asset and attract more homebuyers, presented by Sundance Realty.

DIY or Pro

Before you grab your garden gloves, it’s best to evaluate whether you need a helping hand. Adding the wrong type of grass seed, planting incompatible shrubbery, and other landscaping mistakes can leave your lawn worse off than it started. If you’re not an experienced gardener, an expert landscaper can give you a low-maintenance lawn that will look great the whole year through. Be sure to ask about ways to keep your new landscape as healthy and lush as possible.

Inch & Co Landscape Division notes that hiring a landscaper will also save you time. Landscapers will be able to choose the best plants and materials for you, and you won’t have to worry about spending hours browsing through the garden section. Also, touch base with your realtor for advice on what popular exterior features buyers are currently seeking.

Last but not least, consider hiring gutter cleaners if it’s been a while since your last cleaning. Professionals can ensure that anything clogging your gutters is safely removed to avoid potential damage. Sites like Angi.com can help you find top-rated companies in your area to handle this task — just remember that you’ll need to budget around $200 for the cleaning, as well as additional cash if any components need to be replaced.

Get Cleaning

Your gardener will probably want to wait until there are several days of dry weather ahead before making any changes. That does not mean, however, that you have to sit indoors and wait for the weather to break. Instead, get to work cleaning the yard, patio, and walkway. If you don’t already have one, buy or rent a pressure washer and get to work powering through dirt and grime on your hard exterior surfaces.

For painted features, such as the mailbox, light posts, and shutters, use dish soap, the water hose, and a soft-bristle scrubbing brush to get the job done. Clean up any debris or toys that have been sitting out through the winter. This will give you a clean slate when it’s time to tackle aesthetics.

Take Advantage of Early Spring Weather

As you enter early spring, you can do much more. The Farmer’s Almanac recommends raking away thatch before the green grass of the season starts to emerge. If your lawn is a hodgepodge of broadleaf weeds, it’s time to choose a new grass variety. Your gardener can help you choose one that works best in your area. You should also have your soil tested to ensure that it is pH balanced for the best results. When it’s time to plant, choose a variety of foliage, including tall and short shrubbery and flowers.

The Lawn Isn’t All

Planting the right plants and cleaning dirt and debris can get you part of the way to ideal curb appeal. However, you also want to focus on other things, such as your mailbox, exterior color palette, and the condition of your outdoor features. Visual appeal from the curb is one thing, but the home should also look good upon closer inspection.

Make sure you have clean windows, spotless door handles, and crack-free mortar. While you’re beautifying, don’t neglect the backyard. Even though it won’t be visible from the road, buyers will walk around the house, and you don’t want their first impression to be ruined as soon as they turn the corner.

Curb appeal matters more than you might think. If a bad yard turns you in the other direction, it will do the same to your buyers. So get outside, hire a landscaper and gardener if you need to, and reap the benefits of beautifying your home’s exterior.