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Easy Tips To Help Your Lawn Look Its Best For Spring 

Curb Appeal is very important when trying to sell your home. Some buyers make a decision about a house before they even step foot in the front door. Thus, it is very important to help your lawn look its best while your house is on the market. Spring is the time for renewal; think of it as similar to getting your body ready for beach season. If you want washboard abs come July, you better start working out a lot earlier than that. If you want a lush, green lawn that's the envy of the neighborhood, you've got to be its personal trainer and break a little sweat.  

If prospective buyers looked at your house today, what would they see outside? A giant evergreen that looks as if it might swallow the station wagon, perhaps, scraggly old foundation plants or maybe a kitchen-table view of the neighbors' kids' trampoline? If so, you have a truly inexpensive opportunity to boost your home's curb appeal. By spending $500 to $3,000 on plants and materials and a few hours of time, you can achieve a well-landscaped look without shelling out for professional help. Besides the personal enjoyment you'll get from a prettier yard, landscaping adds more value than almost any other home renovation. A recent Michigan State University study found that depending on where the house is located, high-quality landscaping adds 5 percent to 11 percent to its price. If you have no immediate plans to move, all the better: Landscaping is the one home improvement that actually appreciates over time. So how do you decide which projects to tackle? That depends on how long you think you'll be around to enjoy the results.  

If you're selling in a year or less: 

Edge The Beds 

Cutting fresh edges where grass meets mulch makes the lawn look well kept. A move as simple as curving the edge of your flower beds could increase the value of your home by 1 percent, says horticulture professor Bridget Behe, the lead researcher on the MSU study. Also, if your foundation plants are overgrown, widening the beds by two feet will make the shrubs seem smaller. 

Nourish The Grass 

For truly lush turf, ideally you should start regular fertilizer treatments a year before listing the house. But you can green up the lawn with just a single application. Spend $45 on a broadcast spreader, which quickly distributes fertilizer over a lawn, enabling you to nourish a quarter-acre lot in about 10 minutes. For a yard that size, expect each monthly application to cost about $20 (for straight fertilizer) to $30 (with weed killer). 

Scatter Color Throughout 

For about $1 a plant, you can blanket your yard with petunias, impatiens and other small annuals that will flower throughout the current growing season. Also invest a few hundred dollars in some larger perennials and in shrubs that stand at least four feet high. "A few good-size plants have more sex appeal than 20 little ones," says Chicago landscape architect Douglas Hoerr. 


If you're improving for the long-term: 

Cut Back The Jungle 

Many everyday yard plants, such as azaleas, forsythia, hollies and rhododendrons, will fill out with new growth after a season or so even if you hack them down to stumps, says Christopher Valenti, a landscape contractor in Lewes, Del.Be careful, though, of yews and junipers, which won't grow new leaves on old wood and may need to be removed altogether if they're severely overgrown. 

Add Drama With Foliage 

A distinctive yard will make your home more appealing to buyers, says Los Angeles realtor Dana Frank. So replace plants that don't flower, or provide interesting foliage with eye-catching alternatives, like a patch of blackeyed Susans, a flowering crabapple or a cutleaf Japanese maple. If you're planning to stay put, you don't need to spend hundreds of dollars for big plants. You'll save 50 percent or more by buying small ones and waiting a few seasons to get the full visual impact (when planting, make sure to space them based on the mature size listed on the label, not how they look now). 

Consider New Angles 

Most yards have almost all the plants along the foundation and the property lines. But if you place yours throughout different parts of the property, you'll create a depth of field that makes your home look farther away from the road, says architect Hoerr. Try putting some near the house's corners to accentuate its shape, others near the street to define the yard, and some in between, where they can block unfortunate views and be admired from indoors. Many nurseries offer free design help to buyers. 

Cover Your Rear 

It's nice to wave hello to your neighbors out front, but the backyard should be a private space. If yours feels overexposed, fencing can offer a quick fix. For each eight-foot section, you'll pay about $100 (for a plain cedar stockade fence) to $300 (for an elaborate Victorian model), plus another $50 to $150 a section for installation. You can also achieve the same effect at a much lower cost by planting small evergreen shrubs, although you'll have to wait a few seasons for full coverage. Or, rather than pruning those hulking foundation plants, hire a landscaper to transplant them along the property line. As long as they're healthy and evergreen, it's a great way to maximize the value of the plants you already own.

Take your home outside 

An open-air "room" adds inexpensive living space that may come in handy at resale. And it needn't have a price tag as big as the great outdoors. 

Finally, don’t forget to tidy up. Curb appeal also means a place that looks neat and clean, the kind of place you’d like to live. 


Thanks again. 

Rob Ellerman 816-695-SOLD 

The above information is curtesy of:  

www.money.cnn.com 


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Real Estate Tips
Selling Your Home >Dress For Success

Looking good is important when you want to make a great impression, whether for a job interview or a social function. The same is true of a home that is on the market. When the "For Sale" sign goes up in front of your home, it should be "dressed" for the occasion.

Since the first impression will be of the front of the house, a well-groomed exterior is crucial, from the landscaping to the paint. The interior of your home should be clean and tastefully decorated. Take care of any minor cosmetic repairs that are needed, such as cracked plaster or peeling paint. A sparkling kitchen and shiny bathrooms, clean windows, and the absence of clutter will help your home "show well". Keeping your home looking good at all times is hard work, especially if you have children and are packing for a move. However, the dividends are impressive, because a home that looks well cared for has an excellent chance of selling quickly and for the best price.

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Real Estate Trivia
Q 
From 1974 to 1996, what was the world's tallest habitable building?

A 
The Sears Towers, headquarters for Sears, Roebuck & Co., with 110 stories and 1,454 feet high.
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The Rob Ellerman Team, REALTOR®, real estate agent and broker for Lee's Summit, Blue Springs and Independence Missouri home listings, property and land for sale - NUMBER1EXPERT(tm)

The Rob Ellerman Team
Reece and Nichols Realtors

1153 Northeast Rice Road
Lees Summit, MO. 64086
Office: 816-251-1435
Fax: 816-524-4665
Email: robellerman@NUMBER1EXPERT.com

Let me give you a brief overview of what I believe makes a great agent. Most agents continue to do things that were being done years ago to sell real estate. If you are looking to buy or sell and you have internet access and would like to use it during your home buying or home selling process, please shoot us an email and let’s chat for a few minutes. My goal is not to brag about my status in the company and how much I sell, it’s to make your next move as fun and painless as possible. Top agent status always seems to follow. I look forward to hearing from you.

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