For Home Sellers: Increase Your Home Value with Landscaping

Landscaping - It all starts at the curb

Completing a upgrade on your landscaping is one of the quickest ways to make your house sell faster and for more money. What can you do to make sure your house gets noticed? We've heard it a million times, but upgrading the home's front landscaping DOES make a difference.

Everyone knows the value of a first impression. But we have learned that landscaping the front and/or backyard of your reaps a 7% better return on your money invested in landing renovations than the average return on other popular renovations you might consider.

The standards always include a spoonful of "trim the shrubs, add fresh mulch, and a few splashes of color" to make the medicine go down better. Here is a more thorough list of landscaping renovations that will sell your home faster and for more.

Landscaping tips

Roses: There's nothing quite like popping in hybrid tea roses because you'll have blooms all season. Place them by the entrance so people can see and smell them. If you had 10 rose bushes, it may seem high maitennce but If you were to have three, it's a nice way to welcome a buyer into the home.

Mixed Planters: Place one pot in the front and two in back, where they will draw the eye to features worthy of highlighting. Take a pre-planted mixed basket and take off the hanging hooks. Plop the whole thing into a freestanding planter or urn, and it's done. You won't have to even sweep up any dirt.

Upgrade your lawn: Overseeding on an existing lawn can be time consuming and hard to achieve the desired results. Resodding, especially the front yard, is an instant bang. Rip out the old sod, rototill and put down new for about $7 a square metre. If you keep it well watered, refresh mulch and edge your lawn to "make it look tidy.

Screening: To screen a wall or fence, try using a trellis and a climbing perennial. Climbers, including Virginia creeper or ivy, quickly mask problems. For even faster coverage, buy and plant a morning glory that already has flowers. Upright evergreens (right) give year-round eye relief. Some climbers will grow up to 2 feet per year, according to Urban. A 3-foot plant generally costs about $30. Upright evergreens give year-round eye relief. They can get to 6 to 8 feet tall, but only 3 feet wide. $140 for a 4- to 5-foot tree and are very low maintenance.

These are some quick tips that can help you improve the speed of sale and the price you command when you sell your home.