If you are planning on selling your residential or commercial property, it’s essential to put your best foot forward and present your property in the best possible light. Many people spend hours and hours making sure everything inside the home looks perfect, but sometimes forget about the house exterior; particularly the gardens and lawns. After all, the first impression anyone will have of your home is the outside, not the interior.
The guide will include tips on how to tidy up your outdoor space and advice on purchasing low maintenance plants which will appeal to buyers and improve saleability.
1. It’s obvious, but mow the lawn
If it’s the middle of summer, having mowed the lawn a week ago isn’t going to cut it. Grass multiplies in hot weather, especially if there has been some rain. At the most, you’ll want to give the lawns a mow no more than two days before a scheduled open house or appointment with a potential buyer.
This also includes trimming the edges of pathways, driveways, guttering at the front of the property and so on.
2. Why pruning the plants and trees is important
Once again, it’s all about first impressions. When a prospective buyer visits your property, they’ll look at the outer space of the house, before they see the inside. If the first things they are greeted with is a lawn badly in need of mowing, topped off with plants, shrubs and trees that look like they haven’t seen any love in years, it can be off-putting for a buyer even before they step through the front door. It gives the impression of neglect, and they could view the rest of your home with a negative mindset, making a sale that much harder to close.
3. Make sure your garden has a splash of colours
Even if the majority of your garden is green foliage, adding splashes of colour here and there, will really attract the eye of the visitors pleasingly. Colour could be in the form of flowers or even plants.
Some excellent coloured plants include:
- Aechmea
- Plum Gorgeous
- Kaleidoscope
- Cordyline Rubra
- Flapjack
- Poinsettia
- Blue Horizon
- And many more…
To name a few. Of course, flowers of any colour or combination of colours are sure to be appealing to the eye.
When potential buyers arrive at your home for an inspection or open house, with neatly trimmed lawns and gardens adorned with splashes of colour, it’s definitely going to help put them in a ‘buying’ frame of mind.
4. Cover your garden beds with bark
It’s not expensive to buy a cubic metre or two of natural or coloured bark. It’s also lightweight and easy to work with.
For gardens that are mostly shrubs and plants, the bare soil beneath the foliage can look rather dull and lifeless, detracting from the look of the garden. A coating that bare earth with a layer of bark will totally transform the garden and make it look a million bucks.
The bark that has been dyed a red colour is extremely eye-catching, so if you want to create a first impression with the wow factor, coloured bark for your garden beds will do it.
5. Low maintenance plants mean a low maintenance yard
There’s one thing to be mindful of when designing your gardens. Not everyone wants to spend hours out in the yard, maintaining them. With this in mind, to make selling your home a little easier, you’ll want your yard and gardens to be low maintenance, or at least appear to be.
A sure way to help achieve this outcome is to purchase and grow low maintenance plants around your home. These plants will survive in all types of climates and stay looking lush even with minimal watering or tending.
Succulents are a fantastic choice when it comes to low maintenance plants. Some are native to Australia while others were introduced from Africa.
Let’s list a few plants in the succulents range you could consider:
- Aloe Vera
- Agave
- Cacti
- Zebra Plant
- Carpobrotus Rossii
- And many others…Using the ‘less is more’ approach will also help to keep the gardens low maintenance. The appearance of dense foliage and very busy flower beds will look like constant work and upkeep to prospective buyers.
6. Get rid of all the rubbish around the yard
Tidying up all the gardens and keeping the lawn fresh-mowed is one thing, but if you leave all the plant and grass clippings lying about in piles, plus other outdoor rubbish, it’s going to really detract from all your other hard work.
Dead leaves need to be raked up and, even if you can’t yet get the trash to the tip, at least hide it somewhere out of sight.
The overall impression you want to give visitors is that you’ve looked after the home you’re selling, both outside and inside.
7. Lay turf for any patchy areas of lawn and dead grass
Most lawns won’t be perfect. There will be areas where the grass is struggling to grow or has been killed off due to consistent foot traffic. If it’s only a few small patches, you won’t need to spend a fortune on the turf, and it should be a simple enough process to lay it yourself. It’s just another way to make your yard look more presentable. The better everything looks, the more chance you’ll have of selling your property for the asking price.
The Wrap
Enlisting the help of a good real estate agent is the best way to get your home sold, but it’s up to you, the homeowner, to ensure your house is as presentable as it possibly can be. Keeping the interior clean and clutter-free is of utmost importance, but the exterior of the home – the gardens and the lawns – are just as important. Maybe even more important.
It’s all about creating very positive first impressions and that all starts with what people will see first – The outside of your house.