Tending to your garden is a great way to relax and exercise. Avid gardeners don’t always notice how much hard work goes into it, though. They assume that everyone enjoys getting their hands dirty every weekend.
The outside garden you spent years maintaining might become a burden for others. New homeowners have an arm-long list of things to take care of when they move.
Will your garden add value when you want to sell your home? There are a few things to consider before you revamp the garden to sell. Keep the following in mind when you’re staging your home for its first open house.
How Much Value Will an Outside Garden Add to a Home?
A UK study of homeowners found that a well-kept garden raised property value by 77%. On average, the homeowners spent $3,500 to landscape their property.
Adding value to a home is subjective to the buyer’s taste, though. How you spend that $3,500 in the garden makes a huge difference.
If you’ve spent that money on a greenhouse, most buyers won’t see the value. Take that money and use it to install hearty plants, instead. New homeowners appreciate easy-to-keep plants that don’t demand time right after the move.
The Downside to Selling a Home With a Large Garden
Sturdy bushes and trees are a safe bet when it comes to an outside garden. What do you do if you’ve installed a large vegetable garden? Will a buyer see any value in inheriting your prepared planting beds?
The truth is, unless you find another avid gardener, they’ll see it as wasted space. Homeowners, especially new ones, buy a home to have bigger private spaces. Garden beds eat up a lot of room others want as grass space for kids to play.
Another primary concern for home buyers is undoing your hard work. Many don’t know about caring for flowers like roses. Their gut tells them to find another house so their black thumb doesn’t strike again.
How to Prepare Your Garden for the Best Return of Interest
You don’t need to destroy your garden before putting it on the market. Over a few months, you need to simplify the garden to entice a wide range of buyers.
Ideas to give your outside garden more value:
- Replace part of the vegetable garden with annual flowers
- Install weed barriers and mulch in every flower bed
- Switch in-ground garden plots to easy-to-remove raised beds
- Swap fussy perennials for easier plants
- Trim the hedges and trees to make the yard look bigger
You might ask, “Can’t I sell my house as is?” Yes, you might get lucky and someone sees the value of your garden improvements. Be prepared to sell under your home’s market value if you offer it as is to a buyer.
Outside Gardens Can Hurt or Boost Your Home’s Value
The secret to a valuable outside garden is knowing what people want in their yard. Caring for plants might be your life’s passion, but not the next homeowner’s.
Your garden decorating needs to find a balance. A four-foot-tall concrete fountain looks cool but needs constant maintenance. Installing a birdbath, instead, still provides an interesting water feature, it’s just smaller.
Need ideas to get your garden ready for an open house? Browse our Outdoor Decor section for a few decorating tips.
