When people talk about making renovations to their house what they are ultimately thinking is resale, resale, resale. Even before the show "Fixer Upper" hit the scene it seemed like every city had their own version of the "Flip or Flop" formula. Invest in key areas of the house and end up with a profit, mainly by updating the kitchen or bathroom, updating appliances, or simply adding a fresh coat of paint. However, not many of these shows seemed to address the landscaping even though you can reap the same returns on investment! So, naturally, we're here to fix that.[caption id="attachment_13456" align="aligncenter" width="352"] Before Native Edge[/caption][caption id="attachment_13461" align="aligncenter" width="350"] After Native Edge[/caption]While trying to figure out exactly what a single potential homeowner might perceive as valuable in a landscape is tricky, there are definitely some key characteristics that on average are looked at more positively than others.For example, in a paper published by the Virginia Cooperative Extension called,The Effect of Landscape Plants on Perceived Home Value they found that people ranked "design sophistication" as the most important factor that increased the value of the home outweighing plant size and diversity of plant material type. More specifically, "the preferred landscape included a sophisticated design with large deciduous, evergreen, and annual color plants and colored hardscape." Additionally, across the seven states surveyed they found that the change in value from a home with no landscape (lawn only) to a home that was well-landscaped ranged from 5.5-11.4%. That means that a home worth $200,000 with no landscape could be worth $11,000-$22,800 more after new sophisticated landscaping!The best part about investing in landscaping is that it only gets better with age. As plants start to reach their mature heights, and get established, you really begin to see designs come to life.
Before Native Edge[/caption][caption id="attachment_13461" align="aligncenter" width="350"]
After Native Edge[/caption]While trying to figure out exactly what a single potential homeowner might perceive as valuable in a landscape is tricky, there are definitely some key characteristics that on average are looked at more positively than others.For example, in a paper published by the Virginia Cooperative Extension called,The Effect of Landscape Plants on Perceived Home Value they found that people ranked "design sophistication" as the most important factor that increased the value of the home outweighing plant size and diversity of plant material type. More specifically, "the preferred landscape included a sophisticated design with large deciduous, evergreen, and annual color plants and colored hardscape." Additionally, across the seven states surveyed they found that the change in value from a home with no landscape (lawn only) to a home that was well-landscaped ranged from 5.5-11.4%. That means that a home worth $200,000 with no landscape could be worth $11,000-$22,800 more after new sophisticated landscaping!The best part about investing in landscaping is that it only gets better with age. As plants start to reach their mature heights, and get established, you really begin to see designs come to life.