The summer season is one of the best times of year for real estate. Families are often looking to find and move into their new homes before kids start the school year and those in colder climates are out enjoying the weather and taking in the beauty of available listings in their area. Making your listing stand out during this time of year is key to making sales quickly and getting a great price. Curb appeal is a great way to make your listings stand out so you can attract the attention of potential buyers and land sales quickly this season. Let’s take a look at some tips for attracting buyers to your listings with summer curb appeal.
Introduction to Summer Curb Appeal
Anyone who buys or sells real estate knows the power of curb appeal. Luckily, during the busy real estate season of summer, it’s easy to make listings look great. The weather often features blue skies and lush green grass making for the perfect backdrop for your listings. Curb appeal is defined as the overall attractiveness of a home or property when viewed from the street or neighborhood. It’s often the first impression potential buyers will have of your listing so putting in some extra time and energy is well worth it.
This year the predictions for housing market trends show a slow steadying of median home prices. This means you can still sell your listings at a great price but there may be slightly more competition. When there is competition, factors like curb appeal start to matter. In this post, we’re going to go over everything you need to know about summer curb appeal and how to make your listings as attractive as possible for potential buyers.
Evaluating Your Home’s Curb Appeal
When you get started with improving the curb appeal of your listings, it’s beneficial to start with an initial evaluation of the current state of your properties. This will give you an idea of where to make improvements as well as the main selling points to highlight. Let’s take a look at how to do this for your listings to improve curb appeal.
Assessing The Current State Of Your Home’s Exterior
Take a look at your listings and put yourself in the point of view of your potential buyers. What looks great? What is a bit of an eyesore? Make a list of what’s working in favor of the overall curb appeal of the home as well as what could use some work. From here, you’ll be able to highlight the best selling points of your listings and make improvements where necessary.
Identifying Areas For Improvement and Prioritization
Unless you are selling a perfectly executed new build, there are likely areas for improvement. Houses that are lived in show the wear and tear of time and use. Whether it be dirty gutters, chipped paint on the front door, or a lackluster lawn, identifying areas for improvement will help enhance the curb appeal. Make sure to prioritize the improvements that will make the biggest difference to your potential buyers. Some great curb appeal ideas include:
- Planting some fresh flowers or bushes on the front lawn.
- Filling in patchy lawns with new grass seen.
- Weed Whacking the driveway and walkway.
- Powerwash the driveway and outside of the house for a fresh clean look.
Setting A Budget For Curb Appeal Upgrades
As with any other renovation or fixes, curb appeal upgrades cost money. It’s important to set a budget for your curb appeal efforts. This will help you to maximize your profit on the sale. A budget will also help you to prioritize improvements so you don’t run out of money before fixing major eyesores.
Affordable Curb Appeal Upgrades
When working as a real estate agent, you want to maximize the profit for both you and your clients. This means working with a budget. If your budget is limited or you want to maximize profit as much as possible, affordable curb appeal upgrades can help you achieve this.
Landscaping Tips For A Polished and Inviting Front Yard
Landscaping is a high priority for listings with front yards when improving curb appeal. Large front lawns play a big part in the overall first impression of potential buyers. Here are some landscaping tips and curb appeal ideas for a polished and inviting front yard:
- Overseed patchy and bare areas of grass.
- Set up garden beds, raised beds, or potted plants along the walkway and perimeter of the house.
- Make sure there is ample lighting through solar lights, front door lights, or lights at the end of the driveway.
- Consider mulching areas near the house to add some color to the front yard for a polished look.
- If there is a fence around the front yard, make necessary repairs or apply a fresh coat of paint.
Enhancing Curb Appeal
In addition to the front lawn, you can enhance the curb appeal of a house with a few quick and easy fixes. This includes light fixtures, house numbers, and mailboxes. Here are some great curb appeal ideas for enhancing the look of your listings:
- Invest in new house numbers if the existing ones are worse for wear.
- Repaint the mailbox or get a new one.
- Paint the front door if it is chipped.
- Clean existing light fixtures well or invest in new ones for a fresh look.
- Wash the outside of windows and consider a powerwash of the outside of the home for a polished and fresh look.
Create A Welcoming First Impression
First impressions play a significant role in the overall buying experience when it comes to real estate. Creating a welcoming first impression is very important during the busy summer real estate season. You can achieve this by focusing on these curb appeal ideas:
- Upgrading the front door.
- Cleaning or repaving the walkway.
- Freshening up the entryway with a nice bench, and new welcome mat, and clearing any cobwebs or dirt that have accumulated.
Staging Your Home’s Exterior for Summer
Many real estate agents often focus on the interior staging of their homes. Be sure not to neglect some staging for the outside of your home as well. Let’s take a look at some curb appeal ideas for staging the exterior of your listings for the summer.
Incorporate Seasonal Decor and Colors Into Your Outdoor Space
Decorating a home’s exterior to fit with the season is a great way to encourage potential buyers to envision themselves living there. Make sure to have bright and happy summer colors for your outdoor space. Whether it be through flowers, flags, or furniture, take some time to design and stage the outside of your home for the best first impression possible.
Create Inviting Outdoor Living Spaces
Whether the listing has a small or large backyard, there is always the opportunity to create inviting outdoor living spaces. This helps potential buyers envision themselves relaxing on their property. Here are some ideas for creating outdoor living spaces:
- Stage a grill outside as the perfect summer staging item.
- For smaller spaces, place a small patio table with two chairs.
- Place a firepit with benches for larger spaces.
- Add a sun umbrella or sunshade to a yard if there isn’t too much shade offered by trees.
- Hang a hammock in outdoor living spaces.
Clean and Organize Outdoor Spaces
While it is important to stage outdoor spaces, add plants, mow lawns, and replace old fixtures, it’s more important to make sure everything is organized and clean outside. Take the time to sweep walkways and the driveway, clean doors and windows, and attend to anything that could use some freshening up. A dirty outdoor space is not very appealing to potential buyers.
Maximizing Your Home’s Curb Appeal with Marketing
If you are putting the time, energy, and money into improving the curb appeal of your listings, make sure you are marketing this in your online listings. Here are some tips for real estate marketing to make sure potential buyers see how great the curb appeal is for your listings.
Importance Of Marketing Your Home’s Exterior
Agents know the importance of real estate marketing. While it’s important to market things like the neighborhood, local attractions, restaurants in the area, and the square footage of a listing, it’s also imperative to market the exterior of your home as well. After all, you are putting plenty of time and attention into making the curb appeal of your listings stand out.
Tips For Taking Professional-Quality Photos
High-quality photographs are integral for real estate marketing. It’s worth the investment to get some great images that show the beauty of the exterior of your listings. Don’t upload poor-quality photos to your online listings or send them to your clients. Opt for a professional when it comes to the photos you use in marketing.
Create A Standout Online Listing
Once you put the time into staging an attractive and welcoming exterior, use it to make a listing that stands out from all the others that your potential buyers are looking at. Good real estate marketing uses the selling points of listings to make them stand out and catch the attention of potential buyers. Use high-quality photos of your excellent curb appeal to achieve this.
Measuring the Impact of Summer Curb Appeal
As with anything you do as a real estate agent, it’s beneficial to make sure that all the time and energy you put towards something is making a difference when it comes to your sales. Measuring the impact of your investments in summer curb appeal can help you see how much you need to do to land the sale.
See How Curb Appeal Affects Buyer Interest
This is a simple and easy way to see how your listings and offers improve before and after improving curb appeal. Start by tracking the number of showings you do and offers you receive before you start making improvements to the exterior of the home. Then, track the number of showings and offers after you improve the curb appeal. This is a great way to see how curb appeal affects overall interest in the listing.
See How Curb Appeal Affects Home Sale Price
If you are selling homes in the same area or neighborhood, take a look at the price of homes selling that haven’t had improvements to curb appeal. When the listings you’ve improved the exterior on sell, you’ll get an idea of how much of an increase occurred from your efforts. You can track this with your listings or those sold by other agents in your area. Either way, you are gaining the knowledge and strategy to get the most from your listings.
Get Feedback From Potential Buyers
Talk to your clients about what impact curb appeal has on them. Whether it be at private showings or open houses, talk to those who come to see the house and see what they think of the curb appeal and how much it influences their decision about the listing. This can also help you to prioritize which aspects of the curb appeal matter most to potential buyers. If you invested hundreds of dollars in new light fixtures but no one noticed, it’s safe to say that may not be the highest priority on your next listing.
Next Steps
As you can see, curb appeal is a bit of an art and takes some investment of time and energy. Luckily, there are plenty of affordable ways to improve the exterior of your listings and attract more buyers. When it comes to real estate marketing, having an interior and exterior that are appealing and attractive can make all the difference in the number of showings you do and offers you receive.
Looking to further improve your real estate marketing? Talk to a real estate marketing company like Easy Agent Pro to help you maximize your chances of selling. Experts in the field can help advise you on all your real estate marketing needs and help you sell your listings quickly and at a great price.