It’s All About Curb Appeal

First impressions are important. If your lawn looks green, trim and tidy, and well-landscaped, potential buyers will be impressed. Curb appeal is especially important in selling a house. Plus if potential buyers are impressed, they’ll naturally be more forgiving of things about the property that they don’t like. Homeowners want a house they can look at and proudly say, “that’s mine.” And a well-kept, low maintenance artificial lawn can provide that curb appeal.

But of course we’d say that, we’re an artificial grass company. What do realtors think? Amy McCafferty of walkthroughwithamy.com says that “synthetic grass provides excellent curb appeal.” And Debbie Drummond of Simply Vegas Real Estate told realtor.com that, “In the high end communities out there… lots of people are going to artificial grass.”

“The average house hunter will often decide, within a matter of seconds, if they are interested.” – Paul Esajan, founder of Fortune Builders

Younger generations of home buyers aren’t hard-set on the concept of having a “traditional” grass lawn. But they don’t want barren dirt either. In xeriscaping, it’s common to see more drought-tolerant plants used in combination with rock gardens and artificial grass. This requires a little bit more landscaping than simply mowing the yard, but long-term it means low-maintenance.

Artificial Grass Should Increase Your Resale Value

Make no mistake: artificial lawns are an investment, and as such it should increase the asking price compared to homes without drought-tolerant landscaping. That can be a bane or a boon, depending on the housing market. If the economy is down, buyers who are looking for a home on a budget may not be able to afford it – and you’ll have to decide whether to take a loss or not.  

Quality also matters a great deal, both in terms of the type of artificial grass as well as the landscaping and installation. Low quality grass reads as low-quality grass, and a poor installation can cause buyers to view your home as a money pit they’ll have to spend money fixing up.

But a well-done installation with quality turf, like one from say, Paradise Greens, that will last and last? That’s going to increase your resale value.

Artificial Lawns Can Be Divisive

Lawns as we know them didn’t really exist until the late 1800s, but they’re so common at this point that there are a lot of folks – generally the older generations – would consider it a faux pas not to have a grassy lawn. For them, artificial grass is some kind of cheat – after all, the whole point of the lawn (originally, anyway) was to show that you had so much money that you could afford to hire small armies to maintain it. 

All this just to say, there will be some home buyers that don’t like having artificial lawn. It’s not for everyone, and we’re not going to tell you otherwise.  

Artificial Grass Shouldn’t Be Part of Renovations Designed to Sell Your Home

If your house has been sitting on the market for a while and not selling, you might be considering adding artificial grass to increase your curb appeal. In general, I’m going to tell you that this probably isn’t the right move, four a couple of reasons.

One, most buyers would prefer to have a yard they can make their own. No matter how beautifully designed your landscaping is, new homeowners will always have things they want to customize to suite their tastes, and a yard is a way people like to display their own unique personalities. An artificial lawn may attract more buyers, but very likely they’re going to re-do a majority of it – and they’re going to keep that cost in mind when they make their offer. If you’re going to spend the time doing it right, only to have someone come in and rip it out in a year, well that might make a person a little sad. Unless we’re in a drought, it’s probably better to just spend the money on yard maintenance. Look at xeriscaping options, something that can add curb appeal without a huge investment of your time. Maybe lay down some sod. It hurts to say, but it’s probably the right call when you’re trying to sell. 

Two, doing artificial grass correctly isn’t cheap. And there’s no point in doing it poorly – it won’t look good. More than likely, the amount of money you spend on artificial grass isn’t going to provide the best bang for your buck in terms of renovating the house for potential buyers. In this situation, a fresh coat of paint or a red door might be a wiser investment. Of course, if you absolutely need to sell your home, you really truly think the yard is the biggest factor stopping you, and you want to go the artificial grass route, we’re happy to help. 

Take a look at home installations we’ve done.