Menu

CURB APPEAL IDEAS CAN HELP SELL A HOUSE

Selling your house and need some quick, cheap landscaping ideas? Using pavers and pots or giving fences and letterboxes a facelift are some of the easy ways to enhance your curb appeal.

Street appeal is a major decider for whether people bother to come inside for a better look around. Poor street appeal is known to be one of the big turn-offs for prospective buyers.

You've gone to all the effort to choose a suitable real estate agent and get your house on the market, the last thing you want potential buyers to do is keep on driving and cross you off their list of houses to view. Why go to the effort and cost of marketing your property if people won't make it through the front door.

Some of the things that lower attractiveness are wheelie bins, hoses, dead planters, lichen covered pathways and anything junky-looking. Find out more about DIY tips for selling your house and what areas are best to focus on.

Besides a landscaping clean-up, there are some basic things that will help - for instance re-staining the fence can make a huge difference to the cheapest of houses.

It is cost efficient and a change you can easily make without over-investing.

Landscaping Ideas NZ — Plants in pots can add structure and interest at your front door. Native flaxes are easy care and hard to kill even with neglectful watering (but they will look nicer if you make a fuss of them). Photo: Derek Ramsey. Source: Chanticleer Garden

Landscaping ideas to enhance curb appeal

Plants in pots

Invest in a couple of big pots.

Terracotta is both classic in style and often lower in price than the alternatives - although large glazed pots add an element of glamour which may be called for depending on the home.

Pots are also the kind of thing that can be acquired as you go, or discovered in vintage/antique shops, although if the container does not have a hole you will need to make one for drainage.

Also be mindful that quirky (we're thinking old boots, or even old toilets which have served as plant holders before) will only appeal to quirky buyers. If you want to cast a wide net, the look needs to have broad appeal.

Once you have your pot, you only need a sack of potting mix plus your plant, and a spare hour.

For the gardeners among you, New Zealand native hebe can be very easy to propagate, saving a few dollars.

And once you have sold your house - just take your pots with you to your new home!

Idea for jazzing up gardens

Concrete pavers

One way to tidy up a small front garden, or create a pathway, is to mix pavers and stones.

Check out the You Tube video here for instructions on making DIY concrete pavers.

If you can get your hands on a small backyard concrete mixer, this may be a better way forward than buying them, depending on how many you make.

Landscaping Ideas New Zealand — Try a blue or green tones to soften a plain, high, basic fence.

Painting the fence is a winner

Paint the fence

One very effective idea to smarten up your frontage is to paint the fence.

Make sure you choose a colour that works with the house, although something a bit more fashionable than the bog standard brown of old will appeal more to buyers.

You don't want the fence looking like a big wall to keep a dodgy dog inside. If it's a high fence, it's even more important to choose a colour that says style rather than Keep Out!

However, if your fence is an interesting one, it will cope with a traditional dark colour. For one that needs softening up, consider a stain like Pickled Bluewood or Earthsong (a green) - for inspiration check out this Resene chart.

Resene has a page on fence painting or staining to help you find your way through the process.

You might also like:

Article updated April 13, 2021 | About

Stay updated

Sign up to news about buying a house by adding your details below: