How an exterior makeover can add value to your house

Home exterior is one of the most important aspects to consider when evaluating your home. It is the way your house and yard look that enables the potential buyers to have a positive or negative first impression, and it is what makes them fall in love with the property. The beautifully painted facade, freshly cut grass and stunning landscaping ideas are just some of the things that will make buyers opt for your property.

There are many different ways you can increase the value of your property by focusing on improving your home’s exterior features.

The driveway

Creating a visually stunning driveway is a great way of adding value to your property. It gives the house a finished look, and you avoid having cars parked on the front lawn. There are a lot of options for creating an eye catching driveway. You can opt for either softscaping or hardscaping. The hardscape will consist of mostly the fences and walls around the driveway and here you can include different materials and textures to enhance various features of your driveway. On the other hand the softscape options provide a gentler visual appeal, which involves flower beds, ornamental trees, groundcovers, and shrubs. Generally softscaping is more colorful.

Give your facade a facelift

To interested parties your home’s facade represents the state that the house is in. Sometimes prospective buyers won’t even go through the front door if they don’t like what they see on the outside. In order to present you house in the best possible light, a fresh coat of paint is a must. First you have to prepare the base, fix up all the cracks, replace panels where necessary and check for any more serious damage to the exterior of the house. The next step is to opt for aluminium scaffolding so as to make all areas of your facade accessible for painting and any major repairs. When it comes to choosing façade paint color, first check if there are strict regulations regarding paint options in your neighborhood. If not, opt for lighter tones with a few darker accents on doors and windows to help bring out your home’s charm.

Don’t forget about landscaping

Having the perfectly decorated front and backyard can significantly increase the value of your home. Now in order to avoid constantly investing in new plants, you should opt for drought or cold resistant ones that can last for years to come. Apart from planting a tree or two, choose flower beds that can withstand harsh weather, and most importantly don’t forget to incorporate mulch.

Mulch is the lazy landscaper’s best friend, it will help keep the weeds away, add color to your yard and just make everything look more luxurious. This might seem as an unnecessary investment, but it will definitely pay off when you see the increased numbers on your home’s evaluation.

Fence up

Building a fence can significantly increase the overall value of your home. Buyers with children or pets will appreciate the privacy and security of an enclosed backyard. In addition if your neighborhood is full of homes with fences, you not having one will directly influence your home’s value. When it comes to fences there are different options to consider. The three main reasons to put up a fence are security, privacy and appearance, and the fence you choose depends on which of these three is most important to you. In addition, when choosing a material you should make sure it matches both the style of your home and of your neighborhood, so as not to stand out for the wrong reasons.

These are just some of the ways you can improve on the value of your home by changing up its exterior. Throughout the entire process it is important to stay consistent to the original design ideas, and to have all the different pieces match in order to create the perfect picturesque appearance of your home. The colors and styles should be complementary, and you need to keep in mind that your home’s exterior design should not stray far away from the neighboring houses as to ensure a certain level of architectural uniformity.

Have you undertaken any work to the outside of your house in preparation for a sale? Share your stories with us.