Can your garden help sell your home?
A great garden can increase your property’s value in two ways – firstly, it adds actual monetary value to your home, and secondly, it adds lifestyle value to potential buyers. Right now, when it’s cold and wet and the days are short, it’s hard to imagine getting into the garden and doing anything but leaving it again, but right now is the time to work out what your garden can do for you.
How does a garden improve the value of your home?
Financially, the bigger the garden, the more value it will add to your home. Just as more space inside adds to the value of your property, more space outside does too. HOWEVER – a large garden can just as easily work against you if it’s not well-cared for and presents your viewers with the potential of a lot of work ahead.
However, size isn’t everything. For many, the thought of managing a large garden is an absolute nope. A small, easily managed space is just what they’re looking for. Again, even if your garden is small, if it’s scruffy and overgrown, if there are weeds in abundance and the lawn is patched with mud, it will be a turn-off to potential buyers.
This is where the second part of the ‘gardens add value’ equation comes into play. Large or small, if the garden is a mess, it’s a turn off. If the garden is a dull, bland and blank space, it won’t make any impression at all (and you want every space to make a positive impression) and if it’s attractive, well-cared for and looks easy to maintain, it’s a huge selling point.
Here’s our list of the best garden features you can invest in to help sell your home.
- Security
Make sure your gate shuts and locks. Ensure the padlock on the shed is in place, and check the bulbs are working in any external security lighting. They’re little things, but people need to know their children and dogs can be kept safely in, and everybody else is deterred from entering. Make sure fences aren’t leaning, and hedges don’t have suspicious gaps.
- Patios and decking
A patio or decking is very appealing to would-be buyers. They can imagine themselves outside in summer, with friends, enjoying life. Make sure yours is clean – hire a pressure-washer, root out any weeds, and clear away any winter detritus that has collected in corners. If yours is somewhat the worse for wear, get broken pavers replaced, or planks fixed. You may be moving house, but just walking away from necessary DIY jobs isn’t really an option in a buyer’s market.
- A garden office/room
Home buyers love the idea of a summer house or social shed. If you don’t have one, or there really isn’t space, the creation of an arbor, using a pre-cut frame and that just needs assembly, is a quick and relatively cheap option. Place it against a back wall or fence where the sun lands in the evening, pop some planted pots around it, add a bench and bingo.
- Vegetable patch
People love the idea of a veg patch. If you can dedicate a space in your garden to the growing of veg or fruit, it’s a great talking point, whatever they decide to do with after they move in! You can easily create a veg patch in a quiet corner by using the ‘no dig’ method. Simply mark out the area you want to convert, and cover it with opened up cardboard boxes. Next, dump a few barrow-loads of compost on top of the cardboard. If you wish, you can frame the area with a pre-built raised bed frame, or sleepers. The cardboard prevents weeds coming through from below, the compost is ready to be planted into. Job done.
- Lighting
Placing solar powered uplighters below trees, or along paths, is a quick and easy way to add some pretty to your garden in this time when nothing is flowering.
- Playground equipment
If you have children, you are sure to have some sign of them in the garden, whether this is a trampoline or a swing set or a sandpit. Families love these signs of a child-friendly lifestyle, but you have to make sure you keep it tidy. A swing set with one broken swing, a trampoline covered in leaves, a bike dropped in a corner, an uncovered sandpit scattered with twigs and leaves – none of these are attractive and all send a subliminal message of a lack of care.
There’s no debating that gardens add value to your home, but how much value is very dependent on how your garden, whatever size it is, is presented to would-be buyers. Take a look out of the window and ask yourself – is mine working for me, or against me?
Eddie – Friday 20th January 2022 (Picture used from Manchester Road, Chorlton).
