What if someone told you there is a way you could increase your home’s value by as much as 28% overnight?
Sounds preposterous, right? Here’s how you can do it: perform repairs and maintenance such as sewer line repair, roof repair, etc. and spice up the landscaping in the front of your property – simple. An expert roofer who can provide roofing services and gutter installation in Parkesburg, PA and nearby areas can help with this.
According to John Harris, a Florida landscape economist, big-ticket landscaping items – a green lawn, well-formed shrubs, and mature trees – can boost your home’s value by up to 28%, and subsequently reduce the time the property is on the market by 10-15%! To achieve this, you may need the assistance of a yard care services company.
‘Going Green’
Beautiful trees, responsible for adding the most value, play to the benefit of the community around you. By this we don’t mean by curbing global warming, although that is there, depending on your budget you may want to add solar panels as they are a great way to offset energy costs, reduce the environmental impact of your home and provide a host of other benefits, such as supporting local businesses and contributing to energy independence. Before you make the investment, you’d want to know how long your solar panels can last. Beautiful trees will increase not only your home’s bottom line but also the value of your neighbors’ houses too, and the other way around!
A study [PDF] conducted in Portland, Oregon established that a tree bearing a large canopy (a maple, for example) planted in an urban house’s front yard increased the selling price on average by almost $9,000 – that’s akin to adding nearly 130sq.ft of finished space. Not only that, it also decreases the time the property sits on the market by almost two days.
What’s more, that one tree augmented the value of the 7.6 houses lying within 100-foot radius of it by almost $13,000.
Impressive, isn’t it?
Want to Know the Value of your Trees?
The Arbor Day Foundation website has a tool called the National Tree Benefit Calculator that can help you arrive at an estimate of just how much your street-side trees can increase the value of your home. And the good thing about this tool is it is region-specific.
For instance, a mature red maple planted in Beverly Hills, California does not add the same value as the same tree planted in Seattle, Washington. To learn more you can check with this tree removal services in Marietta, GA.
As much as we are not saying it is exact, it can give you a ballpark figure of what to expect at least.
Alternatively, Indiana’s Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service has a formula that can be used to assess the dollar value of an individual tree, and this includes the tree’s health, size, cost, and position in the yard. For example, Purdue says a 16-inch diameter silver, in good form and health, standing in the yard of a single-family home is worth $2,562.
Here’s a tip: most areas of the country in zones 4 to 8 are most ideal for planting trees in late summer/early fall. The reason is because the trees won’t have to put up with heat and drought before they can establish themselves.
However, fall can be too late for areas in zones 1 to 3 as trees won’t be able to cope with the cold which can be detrimental to the roots, and in the process, stop moisture from reaching the tree.
You can find the entire guide here.
Now you have it – happy planting!