Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Here is the thing. Landscaping isn’t cheap. At all. So a house with crappy landscaping is not only going to be a eyesore as you drive up, it’s going to take time and money to make it look good.
I agree.
Trouble is, lots of buyers don't want to pay extra for landscaping. So if a house has a gorgeous yard, nice hardscaped patio, pergola, mature trees, etc., and another looks like crap but is comparable in many respects and priced lower, buyers will often try to get the landscaped place for the same cost as the unlandscaped place. I don't know that it adds a ton of value in return vs what you have to shell out. But if you have not landscaped before, you may not be familiar with the work, cost or (sometimes difficult) experience of even trying to book a good company to do the work in the first place. And let's not even talk about regrading and drainage. Buyers routinely underestimate what they have to put in to make a place nicely landscaped or how much money they are saving when its all done for them.
I know we have a thread asking about inside home decor and how it affects buyers, but what about nice landscaping?
Landscaping is crucial for curb appeal, but you don't have to go out and spend thousands of dollars on it to make it look decent. We spent about $600 to redo the landscaping in the front of our house. We did it ourselves. It looks really nice, but it's much more manageable than what was previously there. There was a lot of hard work I had put into ripping out the old stuff (I hate holly bushes), and it was backbreaking having to dig a lot of holes to plant the replacement stuff, but once I did that, I realized I'm good. It's very low maintenance stuff - evergreens and stuff that keeps their color all year long. All I really need to do is to make sure it has sunshine and water, weed out weeds and replace mulch when necessary. To me, I felt this not only made my curb appeal a lot better (and looks nice against a freshly painted house), but it's one thing potential buyers wouldn't have to worry about. If we haven't sold our house by next spring, we will probably try to do a few other things around the yard to help build up the curb appeal, but it looks nice.
Trouble is, lots of buyers don't want to pay extra for landscaping. So if a house has a gorgeous yard, nice hardscaped patio, pergola, mature trees, etc., and another looks like crap but is comparable in many respects and priced lower, buyers will often try to get the landscaped place for the same cost as the unlandscaped place. I don't know that it adds a ton of value in return vs what you have to shell out. But if you have not landscaped before, you may not be familiar with the work, cost or (sometimes difficult) experience of even trying to book a good company to do the work in the first place. And let's not even talk about regrading and drainage. Buyers routinely underestimate what they have to put in to make a place nicely landscaped or how much money they are saving when its all done for them.
I had to spend 23,000 to get my landscaping done and the clean up of the stuff that was left by the PO. The sprinkler system alone was 5k. The place looked great when I moved in. The problem was there were. Onspeinklers. They were retired and hand watered. Combine that with me working and 112* heat it killed the grass bushes etc. then we get crazy rains and weeds start coming up and grow so fast that I had 6 foot weeds everywhere. So I had to start fresh. I was gettting bids for 65,000 which I saw as insane. The guy who did it for 23k did a great job. He does the maintenance. Me and does the work at all my properties.
I didn’t do anything crazy. Removed 80% of the grass and went to a desert scape cactus docomposed granite. and rock
I know we have a thread asking about inside home decor and how it affects buyers, but what about nice landscaping?
It depends upon the buyer and what they are looking for. For a typical buyer buying a residential home in a neighborhood, it can matter a lot. As an investor looking at a candidate property, I prefer that it not have nice landscaping. I would prefer the landscaping to look terrible because that helps me as a investor.
Well. This topic is dear to my heart and here's why.
A good builder built our house - but he was trying to sell it when the market crashed, so his money was tight. We got the house for a good price, but it sure was a good thing we did, or we'd be upside down in it now, because it didn't have hardly a thing done to the yard. The front yard had grass laid just around the front, and had some minimal landscaping done in the front flower beds, because it was a Parade Home, but that was it.
We had to put in a fence ($6000). Our side yard and back yard was a pile of red clay, so we had to lay sod ($5000 - we have nearly an acre of lawn). Sprinkler system - $4000. Extended flagstone patio and pergola - $6000. Flower beds in the back and side yard, including shrubbery - $3500. Retaining wall - $1500. Then we added a nice storage building - $2500. Hot tub which will probably stay with the property - $4000.
We are in direct competition with two new construction homes right across the street from us. They are priced at about $5 a foot less than ours. But they don't have these amenities and our house is only three years old. So...this should be interesting!
I'm sorry, but you got 90+ pallets of sod laid for $5K?
And paid 3.5 for flower beds?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
