We are just a few weeks away from the first day of Spring. This means it’s time to finally tackle those seasonal yard equipment maintenance items, pressure washing the house, and planting this year’s garden. Just as the garden starts to bloom in this season, the housing market generally also starts to flourish. This means more competition when selling your home. Buyers will have more inventory to choose from and every esthetic detail counts. It’s all about the listing photos and first impressions. So it’s important to not let the grass be greener for your competition.
Let’s cover a top 5 outdoor spruce-up-tips to help your home standout above the competition:
#1: This is one of the simplest tasks and offers high visual reward. Cleaning out the landscaping beds. Remove the fall leaves, pull the dead browned weeds, reshape the shrubs, and apply a fresh covering of mulch. If you have the time, a quick once over with the lawn mower provides a fresh groomed look for the lawn.
#2: Weather permitting and if you don’t already have last year’s bulbs in the ground, plant some Daffodils and Snowdrops. Both plants offer low maintenance care and a strong pop of color! Another option if you’re short on time, faux plants. In photos, these look very realistic and manage to be quite eye-catching.
#3, Power washing – after you’ve finished stirring up the dirt and tidying up the lawn areas, wash the house and windows. You would be surprised how much grime accumulates on the house and windows throughout the fall and winter months. If you don’t have the time to do the entire house, at least cover the front for great curb appeal. PS, this also helps to prepare for Tip number 4.
#4, This one may require a little more time, but the results will be well worth it. Painting and I don’t mean repainting the entire home. Simply touching up those spots that stand out (the first impression areas). Imagine you’re walking up the walkway to the front door for the first time, what do you see or more importantly, what would you want to see? A well cared for and maintained home. No chipping paint, no scuffs on the door and around the doorframe. Touchup the high visibility spots.
#5, Pre-treat for insects. For this one, you can checkout your favorite home store or call a professional. The pre-treat will serve you well and should last into the summer months. This will help reduce the number of bothersome bugs, but generally not the good ones for the gardens. It will also help provide a future buyer with some reassurance when the pest inspection comes around.
These 5 tips are fairly simple and can generally be considered DYI. Most or even all 5, can be completed over a weekend and with tools most of us already have in the garage. The grass is always greener, until they drive up to your house.
Eve Leombruno, 2023 MBOR President
