Curb Appeal
- Your First Step to Sold - Part 2

The Denninger Report  - by Gini Denninger

As a seller if you haven’t already done so, learn to look critically at your own home. This can be a difficult thing to do. To successfully develop curb appeal you must honestly take stock of your home as if you have never seen it before. There are so many variables that influence where your eye is drawn when first approaching the home. What jumps out at you as you approach, is it pleasing or distracting? If distracting, you will need to remedy the problem. The following sections cover items that are important to look at, not necessarily in order of importance:

1. Landscaping.
Is there any? Does it compliment the home? Look at the bushes; sometimes they’re too large, over-grown and distracting, even hiding a beautiful house façade. You may need to trim or replace them. Are the flower beds well mulched or over-grown with weeds? Does the flower bed proudly present its beautiful treasures? Are there bare patches instead of grass? This needs to be remedied. A beautiful lawn, no matter how big or small, boosts value. An extra touch; well placed potted plants and garden furniture help create an inviting, warm feeling for the buyer. A word of caution, sometimes an owner over-improves their gardens by developing a garden that requires lots of time and effort to maintain. Instead of creating a desire in the buyer to enjoy, they might feel anxiety over how would they care for a garden requiring so much up-keep. In these cases, a buyer might just chose to walk away and keep looking or they might even consider ripping out the improvements!

2. Cleanliness and neatness!
Is the façade of the house clean or loaded with grime? A good cleansing of the exterior could be just what is needed to make it shine. Power washing is a great method to clean home exteriors. Neatness of the exterior is equally important. Have you ever gone to see a home that had tools or toys strewn about? Or large debris such as a broken-down pool or lawn mower rusting in the yard? Think about the negative impression this gave you. Don’t let this be the cause of the slow sale of your home! Something a lot of sellers don’t think about is how clean their windows are. You might not notice grime on them from the outside, but dirt is easily seen from inside. Lastly, if there are pets don’t forget to clean the yard. Nothing is a bigger turn off for a buyer than to step in a “land-mine” when viewing the exterior of a home. This could quite literally be the end of their considering the house. 

3. Look at your home’s exterior.
Does it need any repair? Are the fascia boards in good shape or missing? The paint job or siding on the house should be in good condition. If not, touch-up, repaint or repair depending on level of need. Chipping or peeling paint instantly means extra expense in the buyer’s mind, not to mention can make financing difficult or impossible if there is exposed wood. If you have shutters make sure they are painted and hung correctly.



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