Curb appeal comes down to dollars and cents. According to Consumer Reports, outdoor enhancements, such as adding a patio, fixing the siding, or improving your landscaping, can increase your home’s value from 3% to 5%. In addition to the financial benefits, improving your outdoor space provides a sense of pride and accomplishment, making your home a happier place to live. After all, enjoying the space you live in now is just as important as any future value you’ll gain.

Ready to increase the curb appeal of your property?

Landscaping

Landscaping is arguably one of the most essential pieces of your home’s exterior. A glance at your home wouldn’t be complete without considering the landscaping around it. A walk to your front door doesn’t have to be ugly or boring. Make sure at a minimum you don’t have overgrown bushes or grass that has died out. You want the grass to be green and bushes to be trimmed. This is also an area where you can get creative! Planting trees, flowers, and bushes in the right places can draw out your home’s beauty and make it feel like a sanctuary.

Once your landscaping is in place, it’s important to maintain it. An overgrown lawn and weed-riddled flower beds can damage your home’s curb appeal. Make a point to regularly care for your lawn and landscaping by mowing, raking leaves, and pulling weeds. Staying consistent with your landscaping’s upkeep will keep it from becoming a big project down the road.

Front Door

The front door is generally the focal point of a house’s exterior, so it must be kept looking new and bright. Sometimes, all it takes is a fresh coat of paint or installing new hardware. Painting your home’s front door is a trend that has grown in popularity over the years. It’s a great way to add a pop of unexpected color and inject a little personality into your home’s exterior. Plus, it’s a relatively simple and cost-effective way to enhance your home’s curb appeal! Choose a bold color that accentuates the exterior elements of your home. However, to ensure your chosen color doesn’t clash, make sure to experiment with a few different swatches before committing.

Exterior Paint and Siding

Sometimes this is one of the easiest and fastest ways to make things new again. If the paint or siding on your home is faded, chipped, or dull it may be time for repainting or getting new siding. Nothing makes your home look more dated and unkempt than old, peeling paint and stain old siding. Applying a fresh, modern color of paint to your home’s exterior makes a world of difference in terms of curb appeal.

Build a front porch or archway

You can see it now: it’s a perfectly warm summer evening, and you’re sipping on a cool and crispy lemonade/iced tea/soda/beer/water as the sun sets on your neighborhood. You pick up where you left off in your favorite book, and bask in how quiet and peaceful your neighborhood can be in the evening hours. If you have a front porch, you have the perfect place to enjoy these summer evenings. But if you don’t have a front porch, you’ll be just another guy sitting in a trashy lawn chair on your front lawn.

Adding a small front porch, or at the very least, a decorative archway, turns your front entry into a spectacular focal point for your front yard, giving you a curb appeal boost at a reasonable price. Plus, you’ll be able to make good use of this livable outdoor space for years to come.

Driveway and Garage

Your driveway is how people usually approach your home; therefore you must ensure its appearance is respectable. To prepare your driveway and walkway for listing day, be sure to pull any weeds, as well as repair minor cracks with caulk. You can also use a sealer to add a face-lift to the property.

Your garage is part of your curb appeal, too! Consider painting the garage door the same color as the trim on your house, as this will give your property a more uniform look. Wash any windows in your garage to make it more appealing. Then, consider the lighting inside your garage as well, as this part of the home can often feel dark and unwelcoming.

Replace windows

It’s not the sexiest of home improvements, but replacing your windows improves your home on multiple levels. First, windows instantly make your home look newer, as the edges of windows can be the first parts of a home to show signs of age.

Second, new windows that are Energy Star certified can save up 15 percent per year on your energy bills by regulating heat from the sun that enters through your windowpanes and ensuring your home retains precious HVAC-conditioned air.

Outdoor Lighting

Outdoor lighting is a simple yet incredibly effective way to create curb appeal. The right kind of lighting can produce a dramatic effect that highlights key features of your home while enhancing safety and security. Install uplighting to draw attention to architectural and landscaping features, and add downlighting (also known as moonlighting) to trees to create a soft, romantic feel. Use spotlights to illuminate shrubs and fountains, and install stake lights along the walkway to light up the path.