Garden design tips for selling your home

November 28, 2019

Be careful not to underestimate the power of your garden when it comes to selling your home. A well-presented garden can add as much as 20 percent to the final sale total. It's a figure that's not to be sneezed at and will probably be enough to get you motivated to pull on the gardening gloves.

On a budget

When it comes to selling your property, chances are that time and/or money won't allow for an entire garden makeover. If this is true for you, focus the resources you have on your entrance. First impressions have a lasting impact, so make sure that your potential buyers see (in person as well as online and in photos) that your home has a presence that ticks all the boxes from the very start.

Create a look from the curbside to your door that is fresh and bright with lots of life and ease of entry, which could mean you need to do a little maintenance on the nature strip as well if it is looking a little bare and bedraggled.

For your garden beds, a layer of fresh mulch a week before photos is the perfect way to smooth over your garden appearance and cover any trouble spots. It also reduces your watering needs and it will keep the weeds down so you won't have to be pulling unwanted shoots up when you have more important things to worry about.

Wide welcome

It pays to pressure clean your pavements and create the biggest welcome possible. If your entrance is lined with garden, widen the line of sight to your entrance by cutting back hedges, bushes and trees so you have a broad, clean line of sight to your door. You also might want to consider a wider pathway to help entice a welcome feeling, especially if you don't currently have a walkway. If your entrance paving needs some maintenance you might want to consider starting again from scratch using larger and boarder paving materials. It's relatively cheap and quick to install from scratch and is well worth the effort to create a fresh look. Lighting your pathway can look amazing in photographs but won't usually make a big impact for open house which are typically run in daylight hours.

Colours

You are looking for continuity so find a colour theme that will best compliment your home and use it from gate to door, even subtle hints of colour will have a big impact. The quickest way to do this is with pots of established flowering plants. Pots look best with thick clusters of different plants. Well-established plants will be lively and thick and you can hire them rather than buy to ensure vibrant, lively effects that won't put you out of pocket.

Hire help if you can afford it

If you have time before the sale date and have a healthy budget to ready your home for sale then it will be well worth hiring some help. A professional landscape artist can give you a run-down of your gardens trouble spots and advice on how to showcase your home in the best possible light. They can quickly turn around the look of your garden while leaving you time to get busy in other parts of the house, or wherever your time is best spent.

Decking

Once the front yard is taken care of your back yard is the next place to spruce. Decking, a patio or covered BBQ area can do wonders for creating lifestyle options other people will want to buy into. It doesn't necessarily need to be against the house either, in the standard way. Creating a deck around an established tree in the middle of the yard can be the perfect reading nook, setting some tables and chairs in the back of the garden may be cost-effective and more inviting options for your yard. Look to enhance and brighten your gardens best features so that someone doing a quick walkthrough will see and remember positive features of your home.

Screens

When it comes to creating privacy, screens are the fastest and cheapest option. You can also look at fence toppers and established hedges. There are plenty to choose from that allow you to blend with your home's current look and feel. The difference matters when it comes to blocking out the neighbour's view and creating a scene of serenity and seclusion.

Be time conscious

The last thing you want is to have to spend large amounts of time nurturing a new garden, one that you won't get to enjoy. If you do need to bring some new plants in go for plant species that are low maintenance and will grow rapidly. If your garden is established but has a lot of holes that need filling buy lots of the same plant and use it to fill everything, it means less work for you and it will create a uniformed blanket look.

Getting your garden right is worth every cent. No matter what your budget or time allocations are for selling your home, putting in any effort at all is going to be better than leaving your garden to fend for itself.

Who is Peta Stewart?

Award-winning conveyancer. Entrepreneur. Business mentor. Women’s cycling advocate. These are just some of the ways Peta Stewart is introduced. What ties them together is a steely determination to help people achieve their life goals and have fun in the process.

In 2004, Peta became the first licensed conveyancer in the Albury Wodonga greater region. Five years later, she launched her own business and started shaking up the industry with a good dose of personality, integrity and humanity.

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