Clients Looking to Sell? Sell them a New Landscape
31 Aug, 2007 By: Landscape Management Staff LDB SolutionsThere are a lot of homeowners out there trying to sell their houses without much luck. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), home sales were down slightly in July as increases in the West and Northeast offset a decline in the Midwest.
Total housing inventory rose 5.1% at the end of July to 4.59 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 9.6-month supply at the current sales pace, up from an upwardly revised 9.1-month supply in June. Single-family home sales are 9.3% below the year-ago pace of 5.51 million units. The median existing single-family home price was $228,600 in July, down 1.0% from July 2006.
Lawrence Yun, NAR senior economist, said the market is holding on despite temporary mortgage disruptions. “Home sales probably would be rising in the absence of the mortgage liquidity issues of the past two months,” he says. “Some buyers with contracts have been scrambling when loan commitments did not materialize at the last moment, while other potential buyers are simply waiting for the mortgage market to stabilize.”
Landscape designers can help, according to an Aug. 17 article in The Wall Street Journal. It quotes real estate agents as saying landscaping makes a big difference on how fast, and for how much, a home sells. Mature landscapes are most sought after.
Kathleen Wolf, a researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle, studied the impact of trees on landscape sales. According to the article, she discovered that lots with trees increase a home's price by about 7%.
A study by NAR says nearly 20% of home buyers consider landscaping to be a very important factor in their decision to purchase.
The idea must be catching on. A new market research study by the National Gardening Association found that homeowners spent a record $44.7 billion to hire professional lawn and landscape services in 2006. These services include lawn care and landscape maintenance, landscape installation and construction, tree care services, and landscape design services.
Homeowners aren’t the only ones adding more landscaping to increase a property's value. New home builders are taking notice as well, according The Wall Street Jounal article. It cites one builder as raising its per-lot spending on landscaping by 5% to 10% since 2005. They estimate each dollar spent on landscaping adds about $5 to the price of a new home.
If you’re looking to quantify the value your landscapes bring to your clients’ properties, check out Horticultural Asset Management, which assesses landscape plant and tree values.
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