Doing whatever it takes to sell a house also includes getting your hands dirty. From the New York Times…
Cristina Ryan and her husband, Paul, who are working to sell his ailing father’s four-bedroom colonial in Montclair, N.J., are hoping that attention to landscaping will pay off.
The couple knew that the house’s renovated kitchen and bathroom, new moldings and refurbished hardwood floors would turn a few buyers’ heads, but they understood, too, that unless the outside looked inviting, some of those buyers might never venture inside. So, in the weeks before the house was listed earlier this month at $532,500, they had the front yard cleaned and weeded and all the overgrown or dying shrubbery replaced with $700 worth of new bushes, flowers and ornamental grasses. The exterior was also power-washed and painted.
If you want to see what $700 worth of greenery looks like, drive by 157 Alexander Ave. The home is being marketed by Roberta Baldwin, who also talks about staging homes for sale…
The goal of staging is to draw attention to merits (like a quaint slate patio) while minimizing shortcomings (like a puny yard). In the process, cracks are patched and surfaces cleaned or repainted. “If the outside is unkempt,” said Roberta Baldwin, a broker at Re/Max Village Square in Upper Montclair, “people will wonder if that will carry over into the house.” Ms. Baldwin is representing the Ryan family.
Some stagers choose to do the digging and planting themselves, while others work with a landscaper or gardener. A homeowner can expect to spend $150-plus for a basic consultation, in which a stager evaluates the house and submits a report on what needs to be done. If the stager does all the work, the homeowner may spend $1,500 or more.
A few brokers, like Ms. Baldwin, may also provide home-styling services as part of their regular commission. Others may absorb some of the cost of the staging.
Ms. Ryan, the Montclair seller, said she couldn’t even find a landscaper, so she ended up doing all the planting at her father-in-law’s house herself. “I called 15 different landscapers,” she said, “and only one called me back to say that he didn’t work in our area.”
Couldn’t find a landscaper? In Montclair? I feel like I’m practically tripping over them.
Meanwhile, what have you done (or seen done) to make a house more sexy for sale???
This seems like common sense to me. “As-is” is easier on the seller, but will fetch a lower price (since the buyer will likely calculate the cost of the upgrades that they will have to spend themselves, a deduct some portion of that from the offer). Spend some money to get some money, and in this case, a few hundred or even few thousand outlay by the seller can net thousands or even tens of thousands more in return.
Bad time to plant. Better sell that house quick.
Walleroo’s right. Whoever buys this place is getting some traumatized shrubbery.
PTSD=Post Traumatic Shrub Syndrome
Tripping over landscapers? Define your terms. Anybody with a truck and a mower can call himself a “landscaper”. Those who are qualified to design and install plantings may be tougher to find. Agree that this is not a very good time to be planting anything!
Don’t be surprised when the shrubs wake up in the middle of the night screeming.
This house is in a really nice neighborhood – close to route 3 and the GSP. I rented a house near there for two months when I first moved to Montclair while I waited for the closing on my house. I didn’t know anything about New Jersey, and didn’t realize that the rental house was in a better location, in proximity to major highways and NYC, than my new house in “lower” Montclair. It’s a great commuting location – hopefully, they will have no problem selling.
Bring me . . . . .
. . . a shrubbery!
And it’s Appletony. I knew someone would go there, i just didn’t know who.
Watch out for Kevin Ward.
I hear he like to traumatise shrubbery when he’s not ignoring calls for help with town trees.
Ni!
i think it was a wise idea to do the landscaping. if the shrubs are very well cared for and were healthy to begin with, they can survive the next few weeks. true, it might not be the optimum time for planting, but curb appeal can make such a big difference it is worth it.
it’s a very sweet house and it’s also got a great asking price. good luck to the sellers, i hope you do really well!
The whole idea shrubs me the wrong way.
I’m bushed – too tired to even talk about it.
LOL, a whole lot of fancy shrubbery and landscaping would probably turn me off. It would make the yard look too hard to maintain for me.
However I once owned a small house in NC that I was trying to sell. It had floors that needed work and the realtor convinced me the house would look more appealing and sell more quickly if I spent $2000 to have wall-to-wall carpeting installed (this was many years ago and the house was tiny!).
So I did, but the house was still on the market for months, and when I finally did get an offer it was considerably below my asking price because the potential buyers said they wanted a break on the price because the first thing they would have to do would be to rip up all the carpet!
I should have known though, since I hate wall-to-wall myself. I’m finally ripping up an old wall-to-wall carpet in my own house installed by previous owners, and finding things like a hardwood floor that is patched with linoleum tiles. Wall-to-wall can hide a multitude of sins.
ecky ecky ecky ptang, zoom boing!
yeah, but those few bushes just made the taxes go up another grand
yeah, but those few bushes just made the taxes go up another grand
A bush in the land is worth two on the selling price