Youre about to sell your home and you think youve covered all of the bases. Youve had the termite inspection completed. Youve updated the old appliances. You made sure to check the house for any damage because youd rather find it yourself than have it pointed out by potential home buyers. You even went through and cleaned the home from top to bottom to make sure that it looked its best. You are ready to put it on the market. But wait a minute. You might have forgotten what could be the most important part of selling your home the landscaping.

Yes, youre selling the home itself, not the yard. But the home is sitting on a property and if that property doesnt look perfect, youre going to lose a lot of sales. Often, people will drive by a property before actually making an appointment to check out the inside. They want to get a feel for what the house looks like. If the landscaping turns them off, theyll never make that appointment. Sure, they could re-do the landscaping themselves but nobody wants to put in the effort it would take to imagine what the house could look like if the yard was cleaned up. Dont make them imagine; clean it up for them.

Landscaping on a house is comparable to the clothes that you put on your body. If you were going to a formal event, you wouldnt put on your gym clothes. If you did, people would take one look at you and make negative judgments. People who might have been great professional networking contacts would write you off, possibly even blackballing you from ever working in the field that they were influential in. You might have a lot of information stored inside to share with them but if you dont look right, they arent even going to talk with you.

The exact same thing is true about your house. Home buyers who might love the inside of the home that you worked so hard to get ready for sale wont ever see it if you neglect the yard. Therefore, it is important to the sale of your home that you take care of every last detail, especially what they see first which is the landscaping in the front of the home. Of course, you dont have to go all out and hire a professional landscaper to make the home look better. (Although you could do that if you wanted to.) You just need to do some basic maintenance to the landscaping to get it in shape.

People dont necessarily want to pull up to a home and see a brand new front lawn. They dont need to see flower beds (where they might have wanted to put a concrete fountain) or an elaborate new porch with a Southern porch swing. But they also dont want to see weeds, missing fence chunks and fading paint on the driveway. Drive by the home yourself and try to look at it through the eyes of a stranger. Anything that would turn you off as a home buyer should be repaired or improved before you put that home on the market. You wouldnt head out to a formal even without looking in a mirror and you shouldnt try to sell your home without giving it the once over.


Ben DeBell is a leading Real Estate Agent in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Visit Bens Tulsa Real Estate website, visit his Owasso Real Estate Guide. Visit his Broken Arrow Real Estate website.