Jazz Up Your Home’s Landscape to Drive Up Value
September 13, 2018
Why Should You Try Landscaping?
Owning a home in suburban America is a common milestone for many. The home is where a family can be raised, hobbies pursued, and anyone can have respite from the hectic world. But a home isn’t just the house and its four walls on a piece of property. What goes around the house counts too. Landscaping can complete a home, and the monetary benefits of good landscape design can be surprising.
Landscaping Defined
According to a custom fire pit, a gazebo, and a koi pond can all constitute landscaping, which can transform your yard from a patch of bare grass to a natural marvel. Landscapers can be anyone, amateur or professional, who brings a yard to life this way.
The Landscaping Business
Landscapers often incorporates nature and its beauty to a property, but this is also big business, and done correctly, solid landscaping can drive up a home’s property value, and done wrong, it can cost a homehowner a lot. This is critical for homehowners who plan to sell their property one day. Around 90% of real estate agents would recommend that a homehowner invest in landscaping before selling a property, and the reasons are clear. A home’s resale value can shoot up 14% if a professional landscaper works on it, and a well-landscaped home can sell faster, even up to six weeks faster once it hits the market. A prospective amateur landscaper or homehowner would do well to keep this in mind.
The mental and natural benefits of landscaping are considerable. In fact, three-quarters of Americans spend time in their yards and consider it an essential part of daily life. Flowers are popular around the world for their beauty, along with other flora such as bushes, hedges, and deciduous and conifer trees. Landscaping can be healthy, too; those trees are more than beautiful, and just one can remove 26 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air annually, which helps to offset the carbon emissions from cars and trucks. Similarly, trees and bushes act as natural air filters, catching dust, smoke, and other irritants from the surrounding air, which may also help with respiratory problems such as asthma. During summer, shade from trees in the front or back yard will help cool the home and drive down air conditioning costs. In this way, becoming or hiring a landscaper can even pay for itself to some degree.
Landscaping can be done either on one’s own or by hiring professional landscapers. When done as a DIY project, it is essential to have a clear and practical plan for the end result, from patio construction to planting flowerbeds and shrubs to erecting a gazebo. Otherwise, the project may end up over budget or not look the way the homeowner intended. A professional can be pricey, but he or she will have a good eye for what a finished front or back yard should look like, given the local climate and native plant life. More exotic choices such as a koi pond, Chinese Japanese rock garden, or stone lanterns can make a property stand out, both for guests and prospective buyers. Landscaping ideas are plentiful and can reflect the personality of a home and landscapers themselves.
As a whole, landscaping can transform a property from just another house in suburban sprawl to a gorgeous natural property that sells well and makes for a cozier home for anyone.