When someone is looking for a house, first impressions can make a big difference in both their likelihood to submit an offer and the amount of the offer that they submit. Everybody wants a good deal, and anything that someone sees that they can justify repair costs to they’ll use as leverage to try to drop that purchase price. The three biggest things that will immediately get people thinking this way are the roof, the paint, and the yard.
When it comes to the yard, there are both short-term, immediate fixes and longer-term strategies that you can use to vastly improve the overall curb appeal. Here are the top 4 ways to maintain your lawn for selling your home:
- Keep It Mowed and Edged
Probably an obvious tip, but most realtors have seen enough shaggy yards to know it needs to be said! Lawn mowing twice per week makes a huge difference. On top of that, run an edger around the outside to make sure you’ve got clean lines around the border. This prevents any overgrowth from spilling onto the sidewalk. Mowing and edging are essential to that first impression for prospective home buyers. However, there are areas that a mower and edger can’t reach such as areas around the trees and other obstructions. It is best that you try the Cub Cadet 41ADZ28C912 string trimmer which is also great for shrubs and low bushes.
- Weed and Fertilize
If your grass is one of the more popular types, it’s pretty likely that you can use a product referred to as “weed and feed”. Weed and feed is a two-in-one product that is toxic to weeds but acts as a fertilizer to your grass. It makes sprucing your yard up quick and easy with regular applications (as directed on the package!).
If your grass is a more specialised breed, or you have integrated landscaping that can’t tolerate the weed and feed, you may need to pull all the weeds by hand and lay down a general fertilizer. There are many tools that allow for weed pulling while standing up, as well as fertilizer pellet scattering buckets that you can simply push around to get even coverage. So even when you’ve got to do it the hard way, it’s not too difficult!
Keep in mind the proximity of other plants when choosing poison in landscaped rocks as it’s very easy to kill the adjacent grass or bushes! Be careful!
- Prune or Trim
Not too many people keep their decorative bushes trimmed the way they’re supposed to be, and it’s easy to see why. Certain bushes like Russian Sage need trimming pretty much weekly due to their rapid growth, so it’s easy to talk yourself into the “natural” look. The same goes for trees – if you look around your neighbourhood, you’re sure to see lumpy trees with dead branches all over the place.
However, when you’re trying to make that grand first impression on a potential buyer, trimming any bushes and trees really makes a big difference in appearance. For winning trim designs, try shaping the bushes into spheres or cubes. For trees, you can shape them if they are small enough. Otherwise just make sure the branches aren’t in danger of breaking anything. You will also want to remove dead branches.
- Replace Old Mulch
If you’ve got any xeriscaping or planters that use mulch, you surely know how frustrating it is to keep up on the colour loss. Rain and sun seem to turn your beautiful mulch into grey scraps in just a year or two, and buyers will definitely take stock of ragged looking mulch. It’s worth your while to rake out as much old mulch as possible and replace it with new, richly coloured mulch.
It may even be worth upgrading to the much longer lasting rubber mulch alternatives – they look just like the real thing and may be a selling point to the buyers due to the durability. Rubber mulch is generally about 50% more expensive than real wood mulch, but it lasts between two and four times as long before losing its colour. Plus, it doesn’t hurt your feet when you walk on it barefoot! Even if you decide not to sell, upgrading mulch is worth it!
