Landscaping is the general act of modifying terrain, usually to make it more attractive and more useful. This can be done on a large scale, such as for a city park, or on a smaller scale, such as a private homeowner’s back or front yards. In short, the message is “improve your curb appeal” for homeowners, since the exterior matters just as much as the interior. Experienced landscapers can offer many high quality materials and landscape ideas for any client, and if this is done right, a homeowner can improve your curb appeal quite a bit. Studies have been done to see just how money-wise landscaping can be, and the results show that you can indeed improve your curb appeal with this sort of work. Custom landscaping from a good landscaping company can get this job done professionally, and the homeowner will enjoy a wonderful new yard as well as improve your curb appeal when putting the home on the real estate market. What else is there to know about the effort to improve your curb appeal like this?
The Business and Investment of Landscaping
Landscaping is not a cheap project to undergo, and some homeowners may have to save up to get this work done. However, when a homeowner hires landscapers to modify their front or back yard, they may expect some generous ratios of their investment. Overall, quality landscaping may yield a high ROI, or return on investment. In fact, speaking generally, it has been found that investing just 5% of a property’s value into landscaping yields a ROI as high as 150% or so. This is a big industry, too; the American landscaping industry generates around $73 billion each year, and it has been growing about 3.7%, according to estimates, from 2009 to 2014. This industry employs around 878,979 people, and they are working for any of the over 300,000 landscaping businesses in the United States today. These are some qualified experts; they tend to have a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in their chosen field, allowing them to do some fine work for their clients. Who might want this work done?
Improve Your Curb Appeal
Homeowners are a large market for all of this landscaping work, and for good reason. Surveys show that many Americans agree that a good front or back yard is important to them, and keeping those lawns in good shape is also key. This means more than mowing the lawn and putting up garden gnomes; minor landscaping projects can be done alone, such as starting a flower bed and using rocks or plastic timbers to frame it. Larger landscaping projects, meanwhile, add sizeable features to the front and back yard alike, and not only is this enjoyable for the current homeowner, but future ones, too. When a homeowner puts their property on the real estate market, good landscaping makes that property stand out more and customers may offer higher prices for the property. This is where the payoff of the landscaping investment comes in.
A homeowner may ask landscapers to put in a koi pond, for example, and natural looking ponds may be very attractive. Other options include planting shrubs or trees, and these plants not only look nice but they act as natural air filters. Trees may also shade a house in the summer and block cold winds in summer. Even larger projects may be done, such as having an entire wooden deck built in the house’s back yard, and placing outdoor furniture like picnic tables and outdoor lamps on it. Swimming pools may also be built when the right contractors are hired. And in some cases, a homeowner may want to install some outdoor lighting for their backyard, and LED lights may be a fine option. These lights can be installed nearly anywhere, give off a lot of light, and last a long time.
Office building owners may also ask for landscaping, so that they can make a good impression on any guest who arrives. Natural features are most popular for this, such as trees with bark dust around their trunks and flower beds or shrubs. An apartment building or a hotel may do something similar, and attractive exteriors help an apartment draw in new tenants.
