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Jan McCallum didn't know it at the time, but puttering in the garden was one of the best investments she and her partner, David Fenton, ever made. A couple of years ago, the pair spent $1,500 and six weeks of their time transforming the nondescript front lawn and back yard of their Oakville, Ont., townhouse into a lush outdoor living space. They tore up the grass and planted shrubs and flowers, then finished things off with a Japanese maple they bought at a clearance sale at their local garden centre.
McCallum and Fenton, both 44, had no particular ambition other than to enjoy their garden. And so they did. "Neighbors were always telling us how beautiful it looked," McCallum says.
Last fall, however, the couple enjoyed an even more pleasant experience when they put their townhouse up for sale. It was snapped up before similar units at a premium price — all told, $40,000 more than they had paid for the home just two years before. While they undoubtedly benefited from a hot real estate market, McCallum and Fenton believe that their landscaping was a major reason why their house stood out from the crowd. "What we sold our house for was more than even the agent thought we could get for it," McCallum says, "and I credit the garden for that."
Such tales are nothing unusual. When it comes to home renovations, no other project delivers as much bang for your buck as some well-planned landscaping. Most home renos are money-losing propositions — you typically pay more for a new kitchen or bathroom than you get back when you sell your house. Landscaping, though, can actually put more money into your wallet than it takes out. A Laval University study in 2000 found that quality landscaping increased the value of a typical bungalow in a middle-class neighborhood by up to 15%. The study calculated that simply adding a hedge boosted a home's resale value by 3.5%. On a $250,000 home that works out to an $8,750 payoff on an investment of about $350. The same study estimated that putting in a patio boosted a home's value by 12.4%. On a $250,000 home that translates into a $31,000 payoff on an investment of $3,000. You won't find profit margins like that in the stock market!
Experts we talked to believe that the right landscaping can add as much as 20% to your home's value. "For higher-end homes, it's a big feature," says landscape architect Bill Hewick of Acme Environmentals in Toronto. "It's what sets a house apart, since most people are planning to renovate when they move in anyway." An eye-catching front, in particular, can help sell your house more quickly. "A nice front yard takes a good picture," says Lydia Ingles, a sales agent with Century 21 in Newmarket, Ont. "When you're selling, it gets more calls and showings. In many cases, it can even get a better sale price."
What do you know — money does grow on trees. And whether you have a postage-stamp-sized city yard to work with, or a sprawling half-acre lot, there are many ways for you to harvest riches in your own back yard. Here's how:
Plant a tree
If you do nothing else, invest a few hundred dollars on a tree for your front yard. According to the Laval University study, a tree can boost your home's resale value by up to 9%. And there are other payoffs as well. A shade tree helps to cool your house in summer as well as enhancing your privacy and buffering you from street noise all year round.
For maximum impact, choose a fairly large tree and place it strategically. "Never plant a tree in the middle of your yard," advises Mark Cullen, the author of several books on gardening, including A Greener Thumb. "As soon as you do that, you've got your lovely, expansive 50-foot lot cut into two 25-foot lots. Visually, you've sawed it in half." Cullen recommends you plant your tree off-centre, in a corner of your lot or to the side of your house. Best bets are an evergreen, such as a blue spruce, or a deciduous tree with brilliant fall foliage, like a crimson maple. Expect to pay $300 to $1,500, depending on size, for a seven- to eight-year-old tree.
Keep up with the Joneses
The biggest and surest paybacks come when you're upgrading your home to the level of its neighbors. So take a few minutes to assess how your yard compares to others on the street. Do your neighbors' wellmanicured lawns and flower beds make yours seem bedraggled? Has everybody else upgraded their fences to cedar or wrought iron? Then make it your mission "to bring your property up to par with its neighbors," says Jerry Kirkland, a St. John's, Nfld.-based certified appraiser and a past president for the Appraisal Institute of Canada. "Concentrate first on things that have been neglected. Take care of the driveway if it's chipped. Make sure the landscaping is well kept."
For maximum payback, put your money up front — a front yard is the first thing that potential buyers see and it leaves a lasting impression. Suzanne MacDonald, the owner of Mac's Garden Landscaping in Charlottetown, PEI, says even a little attention to your home's curb appeal can go an awfully long way at resale time. "I tell customers to do a nice front walk, door and doorstep," MacDonald says. "All you really need are some basic shrubs, a few perennial plants and one nice tree to spruce everything up." Pressed for time? It takes only a few minutes to place a couple of containers filled with colorful annuals by your front door.
Landscaping can be addictive, so keep your ambitions within the bounds of reason. What's reasonable depends upon your neighborhood. You get great payback on improvements that bring your home up to the level of others on the street, but payback plummets in cases where you attempt to improve your home past the standard of its neighbors. "Don't overspend, especially if you have an average-priced home in a first-time buyer's location," cautions Kirkland. "If you overspend by $5,000, you can only get back a third or a half of that because potential buyers are going to be able to buy the same property up the street for less."
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