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How to increase your home’s curb appeal when you are selling your home
Can increasing your home's curb appeal help to sell it?
Curb Appeal - it's the often touted and sometimes misunderstood phrase of realtors and home sellers. But what does curb appeal even mean?
Merriam-Webster defines curb appeal as the visual attractiveness of a house as seen from the street (source).
Essentially, curb appeal is how much people like the look of your house. It can take the form of architecture, landscaping, or the tidiness of your home. You can’t change the style of your house, but you can change some of the other elements of your home’s appearance.
When you are selling your home, you can’t afford to ignore the appearance of the outside of your house. Doing so might mean selling for less than your home is worth, or not selling it at all.
Here are some ways to spruce up the outside of your home and increase the curb appeal to potential buyers:
Clean up the landscaping
This means cutting the grass if you have it, rake the leaves, and put away any implements that you have lying around. Home buyers want to imagine themselves in your home, so make that easy for them by providing a space that they can envision themselves enjoying.
If you have unattractive landscape elements, you may have to cut down trees or remove unsightly weeds or plants.
Make your front door give a great first impression
Your front door is a focal point for your entire home. Make it work for you by ensuring that it is clean. If you have glass in the door, make sure it sparkles. If the door is painted, ensure that there aren't any chips in the paint.
Sometimes simply changing the hardware increases the attractiveness of your front door, but if your front door isn’t salvageable, you can find some new front doors that will increase your curb appeal here. In addition, if your front door doesn’t match the house’s architecture, you may want to change the door to correspond to the design of the house. We can help you with that; see our service staff for more details.
Clean the driveway and walkway
Chances are, your potential home buyers will either drive into your driveway and/or walk up the walkway. Make sure that it is visually appealing by patching any cracks (especially those that are a trip hazard), sweeping the leaves and dust away, and ensuring there isn’t any mold or mildew around.
Lighting
Although we are often great at checking our home’s curb appeal during the day, we sometimes forget to check it at night. Do a quick check when the sun has gone down to see if your lighting is working. A dark house is more spooky than appealing. If the lighting is too low, change the bulbs for a higher watt bulb. You can also add a decorative street lamp to your porch or front yard.
Security
Many home buyers look at your home’s security before making a purchase. Lighting goes a long way with security, so in addition to ensuring the front lighting is working, check the lighting in the back to assure homebuyers that you covered that aspect. You also want to certify that you don’t have trees or shrubs covering windows that will provide the covering for someone who wants to breakin through a window.
You want to view your home through the eyes of a potential home buyer. See your home as someone who isn’t emotionally attached to the front door or the landscaping in order to make your home as visually appealing as possible. Most of these tasks take only a few hours but may increase your home's value to a buyer by thousands of dollars.
What are your tips for increasing your home's curb appeal?
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