Whether your selling your home or just want your home to stand out more, curb appeal counts.
What is curb appeal?
Curb appeal is simply how your house looks from the street. It either has it, or it doesn’t. If your home is among the latter, you should consider fixing that.
Real estate buyer’s agents can tell you just how common it is to drive up to a home, with a buyer in the car, and have that buyer refuse to get out of the car. Based purely on how the home looked from the outside, they made their decision to not bother looking at the inside.
Of course, it’s not right to judge a book by its cover; we all learned that in kindergarten. But home buyers do. And that’s a fact.
Curb Appeal Is Good Marketing
Marketing is vitally important to getting your home sold quickly. Without effective marketing not only may it take longer to sell, but you may get less money at the closing table as well.
The more folks that come through your front door, the better your chances of getting it sold, sooner. At the 812 Living Group we have a complete and aggressive marketing plan to help drive potential buyers to your door. But selling a home takes team work and so we work with our seller clients to help them put their best house forward.
As a home seller, you have a part to play in the marketing process as well. After all, it’s not your agent who will clean and de-clutter the inside of the home or work on the exterior to make it more appealing.
Curb appeal is one of the most important marketing factors in home sales.
Take an hour or so this weekend and drive around your general area. Check out the other homes on the market. Pay close attention to each home’s curb appeal, or lack thereof.
Then, take a few minutes to create a what-can-I-do-to-better-market-my-home list. We give you some ideas of what to look for below.
Buyers buy with their eyes, so when you're looking to sell you house, the way the front of your home looks counts even more.
In Southern Indiana, MLS (Multiple Listing Service) rules state that the first picture of each home listing must be of the front of the house.
So whether a buyer is driving by your home or they find it online, the front of the home is the first impression they'll get.
With all of this in mind, we sat down with local Southern Indiana landscaping and gardening expert, Brian Julius with Walnut Ridge Nursery and Gardening Center, to talk about the DO's and DON'Ts of how to make your home stand out from the curb.
Click below to watch our short interview:
What happens – or doesn’t – between the curb and the home’s front door is known as curb appeal. It makes or breaks the potential buyer’s first impression. It really is that important.
5 Quick Tips For More Curb Appeal
Let’s take a look at a few common ways you can help your home stand out from the competition:
1. Landscaping: How’s yours? Could the front yard use a little sprucing up? Start by picking up the branches, dead leaves and trash.
Rake around shrubbery and in beds. Consider adding a layer of fresh mulch to planting beds. It doesn’t cost all that much and it looks really great.
Pops of color are a welcome respite from the dreariness of winter. Choose some of the pansies we’ve seen on sale, pot them up in pretty pots and set them on the front porch. Or line the walkway with them.
2. Lawn Care: The old saying goes "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." When it comes to curb appeal, especially if you are planning to sell your home, making sure your grass is the greener one can be helpful.
There are plenty of do-it-yourself options you can find at places like Home Depot (HomeDepot.com) or Lowes (Lowes.com) or you can hire a local lawn care company to come out and treat your lawn to minimize weeds and maximize green.
3. Window Screens and Shutters: Don’t think that buyers won’t notice that your window screens have holes in them or are hanging off their frames. They will; maybe not consciously, but it will give the house a general run-down and shabby sort of look. This is another relatively inexpensive fix that will pay off.
While you're looking at the screens, take a look at the shutters. Are they faded, damaged, or coming loose? Take time to refresh them and paint or re-paint them to match the front door.
4. Front Door: And while we're on the topic of your front door, could it use a new coat of paint? Sometimes just that one change can brighten the entire exterior of a house. If it coordinates with the home’s exterior paint color, consider a “… black or charcoal gray front door,” according to a survey by a major real estate website. Why?
“Homes that feature charcoal gray or black doors typically sell for $6,271 more than expected,” they said. Whatever you choose, don’t pick yellow. Homes with yellow front doors actually sell for less, according to the survey.
Before you paint the door, though, look up. That’s right UP. See the cobwebs hanging from the eaves? They kind of match the ones hanging from the porch light.
While they may have looked festive last Halloween, when the house is on the market, they look awful. Sweep or power wash them away before you paint the door.
5: Little Things Mean A Lot: How about some little things? New house numbers and a new mailbox will lend a fresh feeling to the home from the curb. Washing the exterior of the windows will make it look like the owner of the home really cares about it. That’s attractive to a buyer.
Overall, the effect you want to give to anyone looking at your house from the street is: “Mr. and/or Mrs. Clean live in this house.”
While many homeowners can go the DIY - Do It Yourself - route, some buyers will need the help local of professionals like those at Walnut Ridge.
For those who would like to try to spruce up their curb appeal on their own, we put together a FREE guide we call "Curb Appeal Counts" that offers for easy (and cheap!) ways you can get started in making your house stand out from the competition.
To download a copy of our free curb appeal guide, click the link here: https://812livinggroup.com/curb-appeal-guide
If you have other curb appeal questions or would like to schedule a time for us to visit your home and offer our curb appeal suggestions from a real estate perspective, message us at 812Living@gmail.com
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