Why Homes Need an Irrigation System:
Nothing Else Impacts Resale Value More
From a visual standpoint, it’s easy to see how landscaping can benefit a home. Simply put, it looks more attractive.
A home with green grass is more eye catching than the exact same home with bad grass or no grass. Add in some well-manicured
trees and shrubs and some colorful flowers and you increase the curb appeal of the home even more.
Increase Home Resale Value by 15%
According to PBS-TV personality Bob Thomsen, former host of the award-winning Victory Garden show, quality landscaping
on a home can increase the resale value of that property as much as 15 percent! Of course, not every customer of yours is
planning to move soon (maybe not at all), but virtually every homeowner is still concerned with their home’s current
market value.
Thomsen noted that the economic value of landscaping is so great it has prompted numerous studies and tests. And the data
has consistently shown that landscaping provides a home with a recovery rate (the percentage return on an investment when
it is applied to a home’s resale value) of 100 to 200 percent.
No other home improvement project offers that high a rate of recovery.
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Maximize Resale Value with Landscaping |
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The various recovery rates for a homeowner’s
investment
in some of the most popular
“home improvement” projects: |
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Landscaping = 100-200% recovery rate
Kitchen remodel = 75-125%
recovery rate
Bathroom remodel = 20-120% recovery rate
Swimming pool = 20-50% recovery rate |
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Source: Nursery Retailer, March 2002 |
“Although homeowners will often remodel the kitchen, bathroom or bedrooms in hopes of commanding a higher asking
price,” said Thomsen, “one nationwide study indicates that 62 percent of all homeowners believe that landscaping
is as good, or better, an investment as remodeling a kitchen or bath.”
And, according to Thomsen, when you consider how interior remodeling can disrupt a home for weeks or months, you can put
a potential customer at ease when you let them know that landscaping is a less intrusive project. The work takes less time
to complete, plus there’s a better return on their investment.
Green Today. Green Tomorrow?
Of course, any contractor can install mature sod and plants, then walk away from the property with a picture perfect landscape.
But, how will those grounds look in a month? Or a year?
Real estate appraisers judge a home’s landscape on its appearance, condition and maintenance. They also compare that
home to other homes in the neighborhood and look at the functional use of the landscape items incorporated into the plan,
including the irrigation system.
A professionally installed
and maintained system can be an asset to the property, while a poorly designed and installed system can actually be a liability.
Something for a homeowner to think about when they want to cut a corner today that might come back and haunt them in the future.
