It was fall 1999, I still remember the first time I laid eyes on our gorgeous home. A wonderful Victorian style architecture.
The front entrance was awe-inspiring, a wraparound porch equipped with a pillow top porch swing and to top it all off the neighborhood was full of beautiful mature trees that towered over the homes creating shade and a mesmerizing view as light shined through the matured trees. You know, the ones you see in story books or on T.V.
Fast forward several years later. Our children have graduated high school and are off to college and this home has become too big for just the two of us. So, we made the choice to put our beautiful home up for sale. Several weeks passed by and our house was still on the market.
Our real estate agent gave us a few tips on how we can make our home more appealing so we can increase our chances for a sale. While many tips are being offered on dressing up our house for appeal, we focused on what we can do to the trees around our home to make it look inviting.
We decided to have the professionals at Cartwright Tree Care take a look at the trees because they understand that the trees around your home can play an important role in your home’s sale. Arbor Consultant, Matthew Graham took us through the following list, and checked to make sure that we are addressing the key issues with our trees, increasing the likelihood of a sale closer to the final asking price, as well as a quicker turn around on your sale, since we have already done everything else to make our home more appealing to the buyer.
Checklist
- Trim trees and shrubs away from your home. By pruning trees and shrubs away from your home, you expose the homes exterior which will give the illusion of a bigger home, and show your buyer the home’s potential. This will also allow you to see any damage hidden, and take care of that before the buyer points it out.
- Trim and shape trees around the house for detail. This is all about curb appeal. Properly pruned trees and shrubs are inviting to a potential buyer. If the trees and shrubs are overgrown it takes away from the beauty of the home itself by making the home look like it has been neglected.
- Trim trees away from the roof. When trees are too close or on top of the roof, you risk damaging your home through friction, moisture, lack of sunlight which can cause mold, as well as animal access. All potential buyers can see this risk, and ask for a reduction in your home’s price with the assumption that they will have to replace the roof or have the tree trimmed themselves. Also, pruning trees away from the roof will enable a cleaner appeal to a potential buyer by allowing more sunlight to penetrate through to the home.
- Address any hazardous limbs. These can include dead limbs or leads going over high traffic areas such as sidewalks, play areas, house, driveway, deck or patio Any dead limbs should be removed by a professional like the ones at Cartwright Tree Care in Kansas City, MO.
- Remove dead trees. There is nothing worse than driving up to a house and immediately seeing a dead tree in the yard! Tree’s die, yes that is just part of life, but nobody wants to see a dead tree when they are looking at a potential home to purchase. You may not be bothered by your dead tree, but someone looking at your home is looking at that as one more thing they have to take care of.
- Raise any low growing branches. Raising your branches allows for a great visual of the yard. It also enables you to cut your grass without having to bend over or damage the trees.
- Crown clean to filter in sunlight. Crown cleaning is when you have a professional clean up any dead, dying or diseased branches, to take out excess growth, and to lighten the canopy of the tree. When you have the crown cleaned, you are allowing more sunlight and wind penetration through the canopy which makes it less susceptible to wind damage and fungal problems within the canopy of the trees. While you may not be too concerned with wind flow through your trees, you may want to allow more sunlight through your trees to make them seem lighter, and enable more sunlight in your yard, as well as allowing sunlight to penetrate through to your home to give it a brighter look to a potential buyer.
- If you have very few trees in your yard, consider installing small ornamental trees and shrubs in key spots around your home. They give your home some added curb appeal and don’t break the bank at the same time. Ornamentals and shrubs add pops of color to your home, similar to adding plants, but you give the potential buyer the illusion that you have invested time and money into your landscaping.
- Your objective is to sell the house before they even walk in the door! I hope this checklist can help you when selling your home. Keep in mind, the interior of your home is a huge factor when you’re putting your home on the market, but creating a yard that sells your home before a potential buyer even walks in the door is ideal. Putting a little extra money in your trees and shrubs before listing your home can add up to more money being offered later.
If you need help with your trees and shrubs, be sure to contact a professional tree care company!
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