Does landscaping increase home value?

<<>> Does landscaping increase home value? Read this article to find out.

My goal was to buy a home. The market area that I was interested in is a newer part of town. Most of the homes in the area are a mix of one and two story homes. The homes were around ten years old or so. Most of the homes in the area have landscaping. The landscaping includes grass, basic trees and shrubs, flower boarders with grass. Some of the homes offer sprinkler systems.

One of the first homes that we looked at offered a floor plan that we liked. There was only one problem. The owner hired landscape designers to design and install some beautiful landscaping. I mean really, all this place needed was a deer eating their grass. There was only one issue. The owner did not install a sprinkler system!

So think about this for a minute. First would you pay more money for complete landscaping and exotic trees and shrubs you don’t know how to care for and you will have to hand water the lawn, trees and shrubs every other day or once a week depending on the watering needs of these plants? I didn’t think so.

Here’s how you decide how much money to spend on landscaping. First drive around your neighborhood and look at what others in your neighborhood are doing with their landscaping. Next, install landscaping that is typical for your market area.

If you are buying a home, make sure that the owners and the Realtor did not add the full cost of the landscaping or other improvements into the price of the home using a dollar for dollar amount from the cost to install these improvements.

If the owner or Realtor pulls out an itemized list with a dollar amount on them, run the other way, because you are about to be invited to a party-a blanket party-military style, and you won’t even know that your invited until it’s too late.

If you go all out with the caged deer, the bunny rabbit parade, extensive eight level deck with gold coated railing with chiseled tile and inlayed pebble stone stairs. Do not expect to get all of your money back out of these items unless it is typical for the quality of homes and amenities in your neighborhood.

Do you why you won’t get the value out of these items? The appraiser will use the most recent, relevant sales in your market area to support the value. If the home offers all of these specialty items and the these items are not supported in your market area or even outside of your market area, then the value will not be supported. You simply will eat the cost of all of these items.

I looked at comparable sales in this area for the property that I was thinking of purchasing. Guess what, I found a home with the exact same floor plan and a sprinkler system already installed. The home offered some basic landscaping. And best of all, I did not pay for some else's mistake.

So, does landscaping increase home value. If you spend too much, it will cost you. If you complete basic clean landscaping and provide a functional design with lots of color, it will increase your probability to increase your home value.