Home staging is the process of choosing various furniture, art and other elements and arranging them in a way that plays to the strengths of your house. A staged house doesn’t look much like one that’s been lived in, but that’s the point. To remove the lived-in component and simply present the house in all its architectural glory, playing up its possibilities. But what about the rest of the property? It likely won’t matter if you’ve done the world’s greatest home staging job if the landscaping looks run down or neglected. In this post we’ll look at the importance of getting a Toronto landscaping company involved in the process of selling your home.
How a Toronto Landscaping Company Can Help Sell Your Home
When it comes to real estate curb appeal is king. At no point is this fact more relevant than when it comes time to put your home on the market. You never get a second chance to make a first impression and real estate agents will tell you that shoddy landscaping can turn off potential buyers before they ever cross the threshold. Below are some landscaping tips that can help you sell your Toronto home when the time comes.
- Plant trees – If you plan to sell your home at some point in the future it’s a good idea to call a Toronto landscaping company and have them plant some trees around the house as trees are known to add substantial market value to a property. The reasons for this are many and include the ability of trees to produce shade, absorb CO2, aid in absorbing water after heavy rain events and basically make the property look more liveable. Just remember to keep the number of trees in line with what’s seen around the neighbourhood. You don’t want your property looking like a rain forest in the desert.
- Install outdoor lighting – Outdoor lighting is one of the most desirable features a property can possess according to various real estate surveys. As such bringing in a landscaping company to install an outdoor lighting scheme on your property is bound to pay dividends when it comes time to sell your home. Lighting is a desirable feature for a number of reasons including the fact that it creates focal points, highlights various aspects of the landscaping, makes walkways, driveways and stairs safer to negotiate at night, helps to integrate the interior and exterior of the home and that it helps ward off intruders.
- Install fencing – Fences serve a number of functions both aesthetic and practical. They help create and retain privacy. They discourage neighbourhood pets from using your yard as a toilet. They help keep deer at bay and they also delineate different aspects of the overall landscape design while adding visual interest and creating focal points. Many properties would benefit from proper fencing, although to be sure we’re talking about something more pleasing to the eye than a chain link fence. Call your landscaping professional to find out more about how fencing can help sell your property.
- Walkways – Every property that aspires to a level of hominess and liveability should have walkways. Walkways not only look great they also allow you to control the narrative when it comes to your property. That is, walkways allow you to dictate where visitors go which means you can direct them to areas of particular interest or from where they’ll have a particularly flattering view of the house. Walkways also imbue a property with a sense of timelessness and permanence. They also add market value so you should be able to recoup most of what you spent installing them. Talk to your Toronto landscaping company about creating walkways for your property.
- Adding a pergola – A pergola is an excellent way to create an oasis in the yard; a tiny world set apart from the rest of the property. Building a pergola over a patio will automatically transform it from a little used slab with some neglected patio furniture on it to one of the most important and desirable social centres on the property. Enhance the impact of the pergola by sending vining plants up it to create both visual interest and more effective shade on those hot summer days. Pergolas are not as expensive as you might imagine and can be a strong selling point.
Some other ways a Toronto landscaping company can help you sell your home quicker and for a better price include:
- Adding native plants – Because indigenous plants tend to be low maintenance they can both add visual interest and be a selling point.
- Sprucing up the mulch – Adding a new layer of mulch around trees and at various other places around the property is an inexpensive way give the yard a bit of a facelift.
- Fix any runoff problems – Few things will turn off potential buyers like seeing a permanent puddle of stagnant water in the middle of the yard. Ask a landscaping contractor to rectify any runoff issues before putting the house on the market.
- Make sure the front walkway looks its best – Even if you don’t have a landscaping contractor install other walkways on your property have them in to spruce up the front walkway. This is the welcome mat for your home and should look the part.
- Prune trees and shrubs – It’s easy for trees and shrubs to get out of hand. After all who has time to keep up with the goings on of every living thing on the property? But pruning trees and shrubbery before putting the home up for sale can ensure it looks its best when potential buyers arrive.
Competition in the real estate market is fierce. You need every possible advantage in order to get the attention of potential buyers and turn that attention into a sale. At ME Contracting we’ve helped scores of Toronto homeowners get the best possible price for their homes by performing minor tweaks to their property’s landscaping. Give us a call on 416-238-6700 to find out how we can help you.