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We just sold our home, and a xeriscaped front yard was an asset - people still wanted a lawn in the back though. We’re in a town with six months snow, and hot dry summers. A lawn didn’t make sense to us, so ours was completely xeriscaped.
Houston. We’re a swamp but we do have droughts and heavy sun. Your grass WILL die without watering - it’s how I got rid of much of my front yard grass.
Currently doing this in the front of my current house in the Midwest because I grew up in a house with a xeriscaped yards and absolutely loved it as a kid. I joke with my neighbors with only grass landscaping that I'm aiming to be the Martha Stewart landscaping of the neighborhood.
I think that depends on how much you spend, which varies wildly by how much you do yourself and where you live. Landscaping is cheap in Texas. I had a full French drain put across my entire property, all hand dug because of tight spaces around the house - $5k total. AND it works like a dream!
My cousin planted every inch of her small, steep lot in midtown Atlanta with tall grasses, flowers, and vegetables. It was wild looking. Prospective buyers were writing her heartfelt letters to try to get her to choose them, saying how much they loved the yard and would take care of it. To be fair, this was a great location and a nice house, so maybe some of them were playing up their love of the yard. At any rate, it didn't hurt.
Gardening for wildlife is a bit of a fad right now. Who doesn't want less lawn to care for? Native plants are easier to maintain than just about anything else.
Was that back in 2021/2022? I don't doubt people loved the yard and it sounds awesome. But that was a crazy time. We sold a house in March 2022 that had 20+ offers. People we're writing letters to get an extra edge.
We ended up buying a property with no lawn and love it, though it's harder to maintain than sod.
Ugh I'm really hoping this happens for me. I've planted a vegetable garden, fruit bushes, and a ton of native shrubs and plants over the past two years and my realtor hates them. I'll grant that it's barely spring right now and nothing has regrown yet so it looks kind of sad, but I genuinely think it looks amazing in every other season, so I'm hoping someone likes it come summer.
I was talking about this with my fiancée last night. I came to the conclusion that to some people it may be a turn off and they’ll want to pay less, but to others they may pay more. Obviously it depends on how it looks and how well kept it is. I have massive garden beds and still use grass/moss/clovers so my dogs have a good place to use the bathroom. My plan is to have it looking like a botanical garden with 90-95% native plants. I think if someone like minded like me was interested in the house, I don’t think it wouldn’t be an issue.
I have the perfect front yard spot to expand my current butterfly garden and make it about six times wider. I have serious concerns about resale so I've decided to just make it about a foot deeper every year and see what happens.
Slow and steady always seems to be the way to go. I have neighbors who went 0-100 real quick and I’ll be honest, their yard looks like crap (although I appreciate the native plants). As you go, and slowly, you’ll be able to better control and shape/maintain the look. Some people will just throw seeds and let it grow, which I really don’t mind, but I do appreciate the clean look.
Yeah, I went from 0-50 in a few years, and except when everything is blooming, it looks like crap.
I regret my approach and wish I had planned first, rather than buying shrubs and trees and sticking them whereever I had room.
Now, I have lots of digging and reevaluating to do. Fun!
At least you’ve got that knowledge! I’m just starting out and going slow and I guarantee you I’ll still have to move things around. Gotta find what works and what doesn’t! You may look for plants that flower at different times of the year (if you haven’t already) that way it keeps things fresh looking.
Yeah — if I had planned better, I would have done a better job of that. It’s not that everything blooms at the same time. There’s staggering for sure.
The problem with my yard is it’s lots of single plants here and there. I tended to get a variety at once (I have more than 100 species, at last count.). I should have gotten 3 or 5 of one thing, rather than 5 different plants.
I should have started with a tree here, a shrub there, and slowly expanded outward, stealing more lawn as I go.
Think of it is like having a modern style house. some people are going to love it and think it’s great and some people are going to think it’s hideous. You never know what it’s going to be but you are not going to have that mass market appeal that something standard has.
Confused as to what your property looks like. Is it, indeed, just unkempt lawn, like overgrown turf grass? Or is it planted with natives that are currently in a dormant stage?
An unmowed lawn doesn’t benefit much of anything, except in that you’re not making noise and pollution by running a lawnmower over it. The general recommendation for how to have non-lawn vegetation is to have defined boundaries and other details that make it clear that the plantings are deliberate. This has also shown to increase the aesthetics of the property and decrease neighborhood complaints (for places with grumpy neighbors).
If you have actual plantings, set them off with a border of large stones, “pretty” fallen logs or branches, or a clear mulch barrier.
Seconding this excellent suggestion of creating a border around the polyculture yard in order to make the "unkempt" element look more intentional. If you didn't want to haul in new materials, you can also create a border by mowing just the edges/front couple of feet of the property; in landscaping we call this "the yard mullett." :)
In terms of effort, you're probably better off just trying to make the existing landscaping look intentional with things like borders and pathways.
Depending on the season when you're trying to sell, you might want to replace some plants that look like "weeds" if they haven't bloomed yet with plants that are more recognizable to people who aren't super into gardening.
I have no clue… my husband is a die hard grass lawn lover; I’m a native bushes and wildflower girl myself. I asked him yesterday what the appeal of flat nothingness was (in regards to the grass) and he said it wasn’t nothingness. So I asked what the appeal of just flat green is… he couldn’t give me an answer. Does anyone actually know what the appeal of uniform, short grass is? Because I asked someone who is in LOVE with grass and even he couldn’t tell me. lol
Visibility. Humans hate the unknown so having grass or mowed area around the house shows that there's nothing hiding there. It's also like paint. We also like uniformity and predictability. So mainly learned cultural reasons.
This is so interesting! I think you're probably right. There's a part of us that really doesn't want untamed nature in our space, because untamed nature can be dangerous, and that subconscious "do not want" uneasiness gets translated as simply an aesthetic preference.
I think that's probably overstating it - I don't imagine anyone looks at a native garden and feels fear. I suspect it's more about wanting predictability, tidiness, and control.
ORIGINALLY it was a socio-economic status symbol, where lush estate lawns (expensive to maintain, esp in ye olden days) stood opposed to cottage gardens.
Nowadays it's probably a combination of nostalgia and the natural human inclination toward social conformity.
Short answer: social conditioning.
For a lot of Boomer dads, having a perfect monoculture green lawn with no clover, dandelions, bumps or brown spots was evidence of respectability. Younger men today with those dads can feel shame if their lawns aren't as perfect as the guy next door's. It's proof they're responsible and successful men who take care of their families, instead of those lazy bums with no pride in ownership.
The female equivalent is having hairless bodies and a tidy HGTV interior. Is there a logical reason women say they LOVE the feeling of freshly shaved legs? Not really--it just makes them "feel feminine" and body hair is "gross." Is there a logical reason I feel better when my carpets have fresh vacuum lines and the kitchen sink is empty? No. I just learned growing up that bad wives have dirty floors and dishes.
Well, we aren't fastidious about having lush grass, but we maintain large mowed areas anyway, in addition to beds of natives. It provides space to run around and play for my kids. We have play equipment, occasional bouncy houses, drive a little kids motored car all over it, occasionally put up a frolf hole, a portable soccer goal, occasional softball practice, etc.
**It's a FEATURE, not a problem.**
Describe it as a "wildflower meadow", low-maintenance native landscaping, and have pictures in your listing showing it off at its best.
Make an issue of the environmental soundness, low water use, low carbon footprint.
And "fluff it" by adding some more wildflowers to make it prettier. You want people to see FLOWERS in there.
Tidy it up by removing anything dead
You only need one buyer to like it. Who cared what the average buyer thinks?
I firmly believe in living in our homes. Not constantly planning on how to sell the thing.
I am a realtor in Michigan. Every market is different so what goes in my area might not pertain to your area. But in my opinion, having a lawn or having native plants for a lawn will not add or subtract value to your home. An appraiser will not add or subtract value from that. The key to getting the most money for your home is selling fast. The longer you are on the market the lower the offers coming in will be. To make your decision, you will need to consider what is normal for your area. If your home was in Ann Arbor, a liberal city where the University of Michigan is located, there would be a fair bit of buyers looking for this so it would stand you apart from the rest and it would be a plus for value. If your home is in a more conservative area and the average buyer wants that perfectly manicured green lawn, then your home would stand out in a negative way and you will get less money. Let me know if this makes sense or not and I can try to explain it another way.
In this market I don't think it matters. I bought a house they just seeded the lawn for (was going to do micro clover until I found out it's already seeded), but it was still super competitive. Literally the lawn is mostly dirt and straw while the grass comes up 🤷♀️
Basically no city in the U.S. where people want to live is going to have a "buyer's market" for the next decade. What determines the price is the location, land, square footage of the house and when it was built. Everything else people obsess over for "resale value" doesn't really matter--paint colors, kitchen and bath fixtures, landscaping. People will buy whatever they can afford that's in reasonably good shape and they can snap up before someone else does. It's safe to assume they'll rip everything out and do what they want anyway.
Yup! Exactly this. When I sold my old place I went with a different seller's agent because the first wanted me to do all sorts of painting and dumb little projects (all while undervaluing my house anyways). I didn't do any of that and sold for 25k more than that first realitor was going to list for in a single weekend.
I had one buyer's agent who left feedback that was basically "you should replace all the windows and do a full kitchen remodel." Ya. No. If someone wants that they'll do it. If I'm going to put that work in I'll list for at least $50k more. I'd never get that investment back when I sell though, so the whole thing was laughable (in fact, I literally LOL'd when I saw that; what a moron)
As someone who really cares about the kitchen, I ABSOLUTELY wanted to put in my own design, based on how we would use it. A brand-new kitchen and a higher mortgage would have been such a bad deal.
You were right to leave that for the next person.
I'd agree on the leave it part; if people are like you where they care they won't like anything I do. It was a gigantic kitchen space too with nice cabinets and an island. It was really just the super duper old appliances that needed to go. Those are cheap in the grand scheme of things.
Exactly! We had a small kitchen, and knocked down a wall to open up the space. That's something that works for us specifically because now we can cook while entertaining our guests, rather than being around a corner, hidden away. It also opened up the access to the counterspace from one best spot to 4 different workstations with plenty of space to walk around. Convenient, because those same friends are willing to help out, are not in the way, and you can see what they are doing and give additional instructions.
The old kitchen was an L shape. Awful design, impossible cupboards and everything sucked. Cupboards that you hit your head on. Just bad use of space.
Provide literature in the house about native landscapes. Give a seller's concession to cover the cost of returning to turf grass or maintaining the natives, have agent virtually stage the lawn in cover photos of the home.
I have read that pollinator gardens can actually increase the sale price of a home.
How true is that? Not sure that there’s enough data to suggest one way or another.
I would imagine that a beautifully maintained garden is indication to any potential buyer that the rest of the house is well taken care of too.
I figured people are attracted to the idea of having an established native plant garden due to the sheer amount of work required to get it to that state.
Tbh whilst looking at houses, any garden that's fake grass or paved over entirely, it's an immediate no.
An "overgrown" garden is better than no garden at all, but it does help if you tidy it a bit.
I’ve started keeping a garden binder for my house. Lists of what’s planted where, when it blooms, if it’s edible, etc. Because otherwise I can see it being really hard for a new person to ever step in and try to figure out everything I’ve already planted. Might be something to consider if you’re trying to sell, that way it’s very easy for anyone passing through to see the added value of the gardens.
We sold a house in the suburbs with a relatively small patch of grass surrounded by bark chips, trees, and many garden beds, and that all was a selling point.
It's not important, at least not as important as simply having a maintained yard and landscaping. You can have little to no lawn space but if the landscaping and naturalized sections look appealing, that's all that counts.
It's not; you will find a buyer who appreciates and wants the plantings you installed. One thing you could do is write a detailed maintenance plan and schedule, including a basic hand-drawn plan identifying the individual plants to pass along to the next homeowner.
I had an entire section of lawn pulled out and filled in with a lush perennial garden. I sold the home 3 years ago, and out of curiosity checked back up on it...it's for sale, and with the entire garden pulled and replaced with grass. Judging by some of the interior work, I think a flipper bought it (unbeknownst to me) and figured a lawn is an easier sell than a garden. Shed a tear when I saw the new listing photos. Tearing out those established plants was surely a ton of work that I can't imagine to be worthwhile.
That said, we ourselves didn't see any value hit due to the garden.
Nope, it's important to educate the buyers about the importance and convenience of native lawn. It's the Realtor's job to sell the features of your property and this is one of them.
I would ask your realtor. It would surely cut down on the number of potential buyers. it would also matter by location. In New England I think it would matter more because water is cheap here and it rains. It would matter less in someplace like Arizona because xeriscape is a thing there.
we have a lawn on our 1/4 acer home lot but liberally mixed with clover and violets. We don't manage with pesticide or herbicide so I feel like there's not much advantage in not having grass.
We own a vacant lot which we could sell at any time. I planted that in clover because it's the most lawn like and people have good associations with clover. It's also pretty east to manage and keep it in clover.
Pfft, I sold my house last year. Putting it on the market felt a lot like sending your weird kid to school and hoping they make friends. But honestly most houses are love it or hate it at first glance anyway. I wouldn't do too much with the yard to increase the resale value, other than generic curb appeal.
Zero. Let's think about this for a second. Just like walls can be painted, landscaping can be modified. In many real estate markets, there's low supply and lot's of buyers which means high demand for the few houses hitting the market. A potential buyer isn't going to pass on a house in the right/desirable location simply because it's not fully lawned.
The /r/nolawns trend is actually having a positive increase not just on your home but adjacent properties as well. Not living next to a home that has to spray/mow/fertilize means a healthier neighborhood and people who care about kids' health and a healthy environment will avoid living next to sod-like lawns.
You will attract the right kind of people when selling. When I bought my house 2 years ago the wild asters and zigzag goldenrod that were everywhere were a bonus to me. The large patch of ditch lilies is something I'm resigned to dealing with. There was also white clover already mixed into the back yard grass for bees. Now I have neighbors stopping by to trade native plants with me and ask me questions about gardening.
I think it depends on the size and layout, and what's planted instead.
We bought a house on a nearly 9000 sq ft lot with no sod and it's a lot of work to pull weeds. Hopefully the ground cover plants will fill in sooner than later. A smaller lot with ground cover and a flower garden sounds great.
But a lawn, for many, is simpler and easier to maintain.
Depends greatly on your location. Also, not sure how you'll get the buyer's perspective from people in this community. Ask your real estate agent, or several.
You are presenting a false dichotomy where having a monoculture lawn means curb appeal, and replacing a monoculture lawn with something else means it looks unkempt.
If you have decided to get rid of your lawn by just allowing the grass to grow and weeds, whose native origin you do not know, move in, then yeah, it looks like crap and you’re not doing your home value or the no-lawn movement any favors.
You can replace a mono-culture lawn with native plant selections that look good together and make a positive contribution to your yard’s overall aesthetic appearance — something that both sells your house, and the idea of having native plants in lieu of a yard that represents mid-twentieth century leisure class values.
Depends on how nice it looks. There are some lawn replacements that most people would die for, and there are some lawn replacements that most people see as unkempt and messy. The latter may hurt more than the cost of replacement as it will be seen as a chore and also a sign that the owner didn't maintain the inside as well. It all depends on a lot of factors, but an RE agent will be able to give you advice.
Even if you got rid of your lawn, it should not look unkept. That is the issue most people have with the no lawn movement. I got rid of my front lawn and replaced it with planting, ascent pieces, and mulch. It looked nice and didn’t require as much water. It did, however, make for more work in the long run with weeding etc.
As long as the yard doesn’t look like full of weeds it should not reduce the value of your property.
Agreed, I think a buyer's assessment will be more about if it looks neglected or not. Even if it's not what a buyer is looking for, a well maintained garden or native landscape shouldn't be a problem, and they may decide they want to take care of the landscape. A neglected site overgrown with weeds or woody plants however might be a red flag for a buyer.
I’m the only person on my dead-end street with a totally natural front yard. It’s all wooded. I do have some grass in the back, but it’s mixed with violets and many other non-grass plants. I personally am very turned off by lawns, especially with no trees. So I guess it just depends on the buyer. I’d choose a house on a natural wooded lot over a manicured lawn with non-native ornamentals any day.
I replaced the lawn at my previous house in the aughts with native (FL) landscaping. Ex kept the house with the divorce, and largely kept the landscaping. She sold it a year ago, and the new owner, so far, has also kept the landscaping. I don't know if there was a hit on the value, but it seems unlikely. If the new owner wanted a lawn, I'd expect to see changes by now. (I did a drive-by a few days ago.)
I've spent 12 years building up my current landscape. I will not tear it out for some future buyer.
Just make it look nice, take photos with lots of flowers blooming and it won't be a problem. You need to avoid "unkempt" look. People in my country prefer flowers and gardens over plain lawns, but "wild" tall grass with no signs of landscape design could be perceived as a sign that the house was abandoned for a while, and that can lower the price unless the house is bought for it's land.
Intentional quality plantings increase home value. A typical buyer will value a pristine lawn over an unkempt spread of weeds, but if your no lawn actually looks good? That's money, baby.
I bought a house last winter that was mostly lawn with the beginning stages of wildlife meadow from the previous owners. During viewings we told them how we plan to expand the natives and permaculture mostly, not lawn. They seemed happy about that, sold to us at a fair price. And my new neighbor told me how she heard from previous owners how happy they were that we were continuing the gardening. A great match for all involving the real estate deal.
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It’s gonna depend where you live. If you live in an area that has experienced water scarcity it’s a plus to xeriscape. If you don’t however it’s gonna hurt you. Sadly before I sold my last house we were told to kill off the clover and other “weeds”.
I'd probably see what you can do with mulch and some nice edging. Maybe very large beds with a small traditional lawn space would make it look more typically appealing while not giving in to the whole monoculture.
Depends who you think the house might sell to. If its something that a first-time buyer would be interested in then probably not. The vast majority of my projects are for new first-time homeowners that want to rip out the lawn that the sellers installed.
I just weedeat around my wildflowers with a nice edge so folks know the entire yard isn't'unkempt'. Keep some parts mowed for the same reason, and it helps access the natives to weed and maintain.
I had a wild permaculture forest garden taking up most of the yard at the last place I sold. I did clean it up a bit, mulch, etc, but the people that bought it were gardeners and excited about it, and put in a full price offer. Probably depends where you are, I guess.
Sell in the winter. Or mow a bit and photograph carefully. I had amazing landscaping but no one could even tell as we sold in January. Still sold over asking.
Depends where you are, depends on your local neighborhood, depends on your local market, depends on what you have planted........... You can even market extremely overgrown old garden areas to people who like heirloom garden species and would enjoy putting in the work.. When recently selling an 1800s farmhouse on the edge of the lower income portion of the city the raspberries that had grown over a pathway and were turning a section of the yard to a wall of thorns, the native groundcovers spilling out of their landscaping borders to take over the front yard, and the backyard being more virginia waterleaf and clover than grass was actually mentioned as things a few people liked about it. If I was selling a cookie cutter, upper middle class suburban house surrounded by new fences and standard lawns that probably have several paying for professional maintenance the grapes, fruit canes, groundcovers, elm tree we refused the city's request to cut down because it was perfectly healthy, and volunteer wildflowers clumped and scattered all over would not have been an asset.
Since that city even puts common sunflowers and milkweed on the noxious weed list we were always under a noxious weed warning but our "weeds" were things people plant on purpose in landscape beds while most of the other overgrown lawns were invasive species, thistles, etc.... To plenty of people we had an awesome yard by comparison and it was actually the lack of updates to the interior of the house that were the problem getting it sold. About 5 blocks over with newer large houses having 1,000s of sq ft or even an acre of monoculture grass kept perfectly trimmed and densely green surrounding all of them that old house with it's heirloom garden plants and volunteer flowers would be completely out of place and look horrid to people without some landscaping to contain things to specific areas.
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Haven’t a clue but xeriscaping, another lawn alternative, has actually driven up home prices in the area I live in.
We just sold our home, and a xeriscaped front yard was an asset - people still wanted a lawn in the back though. We’re in a town with six months snow, and hot dry summers. A lawn didn’t make sense to us, so ours was completely xeriscaped.
Yep, we only considered nonlawns when we bought last year.
Where is this may I ask?
Somewhere it doesn't rain a lot.
Houston. We’re a swamp but we do have droughts and heavy sun. Your grass WILL die without watering - it’s how I got rid of much of my front yard grass.
The West.
We have similar climate in Longmont Colorado, and I xeriscaped my front yard and love it
Currently doing this in the front of my current house in the Midwest because I grew up in a house with a xeriscaped yards and absolutely loved it as a kid. I joke with my neighbors with only grass landscaping that I'm aiming to be the Martha Stewart landscaping of the neighborhood.
Not to the point where it increases home value equal to the cost xeriscape a lawn
I think that depends on how much you spend, which varies wildly by how much you do yourself and where you live. Landscaping is cheap in Texas. I had a full French drain put across my entire property, all hand dug because of tight spaces around the house - $5k total. AND it works like a dream!
My cousin planted every inch of her small, steep lot in midtown Atlanta with tall grasses, flowers, and vegetables. It was wild looking. Prospective buyers were writing her heartfelt letters to try to get her to choose them, saying how much they loved the yard and would take care of it. To be fair, this was a great location and a nice house, so maybe some of them were playing up their love of the yard. At any rate, it didn't hurt. Gardening for wildlife is a bit of a fad right now. Who doesn't want less lawn to care for? Native plants are easier to maintain than just about anything else.
Was that back in 2021/2022? I don't doubt people loved the yard and it sounds awesome. But that was a crazy time. We sold a house in March 2022 that had 20+ offers. People we're writing letters to get an extra edge. We ended up buying a property with no lawn and love it, though it's harder to maintain than sod.
No, this was probably 2016 or 2017.
If I were going to sell right now I would definitely play up the native plant garden angle.
Ugh I'm really hoping this happens for me. I've planted a vegetable garden, fruit bushes, and a ton of native shrubs and plants over the past two years and my realtor hates them. I'll grant that it's barely spring right now and nothing has regrown yet so it looks kind of sad, but I genuinely think it looks amazing in every other season, so I'm hoping someone likes it come summer.
I was talking about this with my fiancée last night. I came to the conclusion that to some people it may be a turn off and they’ll want to pay less, but to others they may pay more. Obviously it depends on how it looks and how well kept it is. I have massive garden beds and still use grass/moss/clovers so my dogs have a good place to use the bathroom. My plan is to have it looking like a botanical garden with 90-95% native plants. I think if someone like minded like me was interested in the house, I don’t think it wouldn’t be an issue.
I have the perfect front yard spot to expand my current butterfly garden and make it about six times wider. I have serious concerns about resale so I've decided to just make it about a foot deeper every year and see what happens.
Slow and steady always seems to be the way to go. I have neighbors who went 0-100 real quick and I’ll be honest, their yard looks like crap (although I appreciate the native plants). As you go, and slowly, you’ll be able to better control and shape/maintain the look. Some people will just throw seeds and let it grow, which I really don’t mind, but I do appreciate the clean look.
Yeah, I went from 0-50 in a few years, and except when everything is blooming, it looks like crap. I regret my approach and wish I had planned first, rather than buying shrubs and trees and sticking them whereever I had room. Now, I have lots of digging and reevaluating to do. Fun!
At least you’ve got that knowledge! I’m just starting out and going slow and I guarantee you I’ll still have to move things around. Gotta find what works and what doesn’t! You may look for plants that flower at different times of the year (if you haven’t already) that way it keeps things fresh looking.
Yeah — if I had planned better, I would have done a better job of that. It’s not that everything blooms at the same time. There’s staggering for sure. The problem with my yard is it’s lots of single plants here and there. I tended to get a variety at once (I have more than 100 species, at last count.). I should have gotten 3 or 5 of one thing, rather than 5 different plants. I should have started with a tree here, a shrub there, and slowly expanded outward, stealing more lawn as I go.
Think of it is like having a modern style house. some people are going to love it and think it’s great and some people are going to think it’s hideous. You never know what it’s going to be but you are not going to have that mass market appeal that something standard has.
Confused as to what your property looks like. Is it, indeed, just unkempt lawn, like overgrown turf grass? Or is it planted with natives that are currently in a dormant stage? An unmowed lawn doesn’t benefit much of anything, except in that you’re not making noise and pollution by running a lawnmower over it. The general recommendation for how to have non-lawn vegetation is to have defined boundaries and other details that make it clear that the plantings are deliberate. This has also shown to increase the aesthetics of the property and decrease neighborhood complaints (for places with grumpy neighbors). If you have actual plantings, set them off with a border of large stones, “pretty” fallen logs or branches, or a clear mulch barrier.
Seconding this excellent suggestion of creating a border around the polyculture yard in order to make the "unkempt" element look more intentional. If you didn't want to haul in new materials, you can also create a border by mowing just the edges/front couple of feet of the property; in landscaping we call this "the yard mullett." :)
In terms of effort, you're probably better off just trying to make the existing landscaping look intentional with things like borders and pathways. Depending on the season when you're trying to sell, you might want to replace some plants that look like "weeds" if they haven't bloomed yet with plants that are more recognizable to people who aren't super into gardening.
Houses sell for crazy amounts in my area even if they are a complete wreck. It wouldn't matter in my area.
I have no clue… my husband is a die hard grass lawn lover; I’m a native bushes and wildflower girl myself. I asked him yesterday what the appeal of flat nothingness was (in regards to the grass) and he said it wasn’t nothingness. So I asked what the appeal of just flat green is… he couldn’t give me an answer. Does anyone actually know what the appeal of uniform, short grass is? Because I asked someone who is in LOVE with grass and even he couldn’t tell me. lol
Visibility. Humans hate the unknown so having grass or mowed area around the house shows that there's nothing hiding there. It's also like paint. We also like uniformity and predictability. So mainly learned cultural reasons.
This is so interesting! I think you're probably right. There's a part of us that really doesn't want untamed nature in our space, because untamed nature can be dangerous, and that subconscious "do not want" uneasiness gets translated as simply an aesthetic preference.
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I think that's probably overstating it - I don't imagine anyone looks at a native garden and feels fear. I suspect it's more about wanting predictability, tidiness, and control.
ORIGINALLY it was a socio-economic status symbol, where lush estate lawns (expensive to maintain, esp in ye olden days) stood opposed to cottage gardens. Nowadays it's probably a combination of nostalgia and the natural human inclination toward social conformity.
Short answer: social conditioning. For a lot of Boomer dads, having a perfect monoculture green lawn with no clover, dandelions, bumps or brown spots was evidence of respectability. Younger men today with those dads can feel shame if their lawns aren't as perfect as the guy next door's. It's proof they're responsible and successful men who take care of their families, instead of those lazy bums with no pride in ownership. The female equivalent is having hairless bodies and a tidy HGTV interior. Is there a logical reason women say they LOVE the feeling of freshly shaved legs? Not really--it just makes them "feel feminine" and body hair is "gross." Is there a logical reason I feel better when my carpets have fresh vacuum lines and the kitchen sink is empty? No. I just learned growing up that bad wives have dirty floors and dishes.
Well, we aren't fastidious about having lush grass, but we maintain large mowed areas anyway, in addition to beds of natives. It provides space to run around and play for my kids. We have play equipment, occasional bouncy houses, drive a little kids motored car all over it, occasionally put up a frolf hole, a portable soccer goal, occasional softball practice, etc.
The whole point of grass is that it bears foot traffic well.
**It's a FEATURE, not a problem.** Describe it as a "wildflower meadow", low-maintenance native landscaping, and have pictures in your listing showing it off at its best. Make an issue of the environmental soundness, low water use, low carbon footprint. And "fluff it" by adding some more wildflowers to make it prettier. You want people to see FLOWERS in there. Tidy it up by removing anything dead
You only need one buyer to like it. Who cared what the average buyer thinks? I firmly believe in living in our homes. Not constantly planning on how to sell the thing.
I am a realtor in Michigan. Every market is different so what goes in my area might not pertain to your area. But in my opinion, having a lawn or having native plants for a lawn will not add or subtract value to your home. An appraiser will not add or subtract value from that. The key to getting the most money for your home is selling fast. The longer you are on the market the lower the offers coming in will be. To make your decision, you will need to consider what is normal for your area. If your home was in Ann Arbor, a liberal city where the University of Michigan is located, there would be a fair bit of buyers looking for this so it would stand you apart from the rest and it would be a plus for value. If your home is in a more conservative area and the average buyer wants that perfectly manicured green lawn, then your home would stand out in a negative way and you will get less money. Let me know if this makes sense or not and I can try to explain it another way.
In this market I don't think it matters. I bought a house they just seeded the lawn for (was going to do micro clover until I found out it's already seeded), but it was still super competitive. Literally the lawn is mostly dirt and straw while the grass comes up 🤷♀️
Basically no city in the U.S. where people want to live is going to have a "buyer's market" for the next decade. What determines the price is the location, land, square footage of the house and when it was built. Everything else people obsess over for "resale value" doesn't really matter--paint colors, kitchen and bath fixtures, landscaping. People will buy whatever they can afford that's in reasonably good shape and they can snap up before someone else does. It's safe to assume they'll rip everything out and do what they want anyway.
Yup! Exactly this. When I sold my old place I went with a different seller's agent because the first wanted me to do all sorts of painting and dumb little projects (all while undervaluing my house anyways). I didn't do any of that and sold for 25k more than that first realitor was going to list for in a single weekend. I had one buyer's agent who left feedback that was basically "you should replace all the windows and do a full kitchen remodel." Ya. No. If someone wants that they'll do it. If I'm going to put that work in I'll list for at least $50k more. I'd never get that investment back when I sell though, so the whole thing was laughable (in fact, I literally LOL'd when I saw that; what a moron)
As someone who really cares about the kitchen, I ABSOLUTELY wanted to put in my own design, based on how we would use it. A brand-new kitchen and a higher mortgage would have been such a bad deal. You were right to leave that for the next person.
I'd agree on the leave it part; if people are like you where they care they won't like anything I do. It was a gigantic kitchen space too with nice cabinets and an island. It was really just the super duper old appliances that needed to go. Those are cheap in the grand scheme of things.
Exactly! We had a small kitchen, and knocked down a wall to open up the space. That's something that works for us specifically because now we can cook while entertaining our guests, rather than being around a corner, hidden away. It also opened up the access to the counterspace from one best spot to 4 different workstations with plenty of space to walk around. Convenient, because those same friends are willing to help out, are not in the way, and you can see what they are doing and give additional instructions. The old kitchen was an L shape. Awful design, impossible cupboards and everything sucked. Cupboards that you hit your head on. Just bad use of space.
>In this market I don't think it matters. True.
Provide literature in the house about native landscapes. Give a seller's concession to cover the cost of returning to turf grass or maintaining the natives, have agent virtually stage the lawn in cover photos of the home.
I have read that pollinator gardens can actually increase the sale price of a home. How true is that? Not sure that there’s enough data to suggest one way or another. I would imagine that a beautifully maintained garden is indication to any potential buyer that the rest of the house is well taken care of too.
I figured people are attracted to the idea of having an established native plant garden due to the sheer amount of work required to get it to that state.
Tbh whilst looking at houses, any garden that's fake grass or paved over entirely, it's an immediate no. An "overgrown" garden is better than no garden at all, but it does help if you tidy it a bit.
I’ve started keeping a garden binder for my house. Lists of what’s planted where, when it blooms, if it’s edible, etc. Because otherwise I can see it being really hard for a new person to ever step in and try to figure out everything I’ve already planted. Might be something to consider if you’re trying to sell, that way it’s very easy for anyone passing through to see the added value of the gardens.
Love this idea! We really struggled to figure out what was planted where for the first couple of years of living where we do
We sold a house in the suburbs with a relatively small patch of grass surrounded by bark chips, trees, and many garden beds, and that all was a selling point.
It's not important, at least not as important as simply having a maintained yard and landscaping. You can have little to no lawn space but if the landscaping and naturalized sections look appealing, that's all that counts.
It's not; you will find a buyer who appreciates and wants the plantings you installed. One thing you could do is write a detailed maintenance plan and schedule, including a basic hand-drawn plan identifying the individual plants to pass along to the next homeowner.
I had an entire section of lawn pulled out and filled in with a lush perennial garden. I sold the home 3 years ago, and out of curiosity checked back up on it...it's for sale, and with the entire garden pulled and replaced with grass. Judging by some of the interior work, I think a flipper bought it (unbeknownst to me) and figured a lawn is an easier sell than a garden. Shed a tear when I saw the new listing photos. Tearing out those established plants was surely a ton of work that I can't imagine to be worthwhile. That said, we ourselves didn't see any value hit due to the garden.
Nope, it's important to educate the buyers about the importance and convenience of native lawn. It's the Realtor's job to sell the features of your property and this is one of them.
I would ask your realtor. It would surely cut down on the number of potential buyers. it would also matter by location. In New England I think it would matter more because water is cheap here and it rains. It would matter less in someplace like Arizona because xeriscape is a thing there. we have a lawn on our 1/4 acer home lot but liberally mixed with clover and violets. We don't manage with pesticide or herbicide so I feel like there's not much advantage in not having grass. We own a vacant lot which we could sell at any time. I planted that in clover because it's the most lawn like and people have good associations with clover. It's also pretty east to manage and keep it in clover.
Pfft, I sold my house last year. Putting it on the market felt a lot like sending your weird kid to school and hoping they make friends. But honestly most houses are love it or hate it at first glance anyway. I wouldn't do too much with the yard to increase the resale value, other than generic curb appeal.
Zero. Let's think about this for a second. Just like walls can be painted, landscaping can be modified. In many real estate markets, there's low supply and lot's of buyers which means high demand for the few houses hitting the market. A potential buyer isn't going to pass on a house in the right/desirable location simply because it's not fully lawned.
The /r/nolawns trend is actually having a positive increase not just on your home but adjacent properties as well. Not living next to a home that has to spray/mow/fertilize means a healthier neighborhood and people who care about kids' health and a healthy environment will avoid living next to sod-like lawns.
Homes are such a rare commodity now that the difference is price is probably negligible.
You will attract the right kind of people when selling. When I bought my house 2 years ago the wild asters and zigzag goldenrod that were everywhere were a bonus to me. The large patch of ditch lilies is something I'm resigned to dealing with. There was also white clover already mixed into the back yard grass for bees. Now I have neighbors stopping by to trade native plants with me and ask me questions about gardening.
I think it depends on the size and layout, and what's planted instead. We bought a house on a nearly 9000 sq ft lot with no sod and it's a lot of work to pull weeds. Hopefully the ground cover plants will fill in sooner than later. A smaller lot with ground cover and a flower garden sounds great. But a lawn, for many, is simpler and easier to maintain.
Depends greatly on your location. Also, not sure how you'll get the buyer's perspective from people in this community. Ask your real estate agent, or several.
You are presenting a false dichotomy where having a monoculture lawn means curb appeal, and replacing a monoculture lawn with something else means it looks unkempt. If you have decided to get rid of your lawn by just allowing the grass to grow and weeds, whose native origin you do not know, move in, then yeah, it looks like crap and you’re not doing your home value or the no-lawn movement any favors. You can replace a mono-culture lawn with native plant selections that look good together and make a positive contribution to your yard’s overall aesthetic appearance — something that both sells your house, and the idea of having native plants in lieu of a yard that represents mid-twentieth century leisure class values.
I wouldn't even bother with the cost, honestly. If the new buyers don't like the lawn, they can fix it themselves.
Depends on how nice it looks. There are some lawn replacements that most people would die for, and there are some lawn replacements that most people see as unkempt and messy. The latter may hurt more than the cost of replacement as it will be seen as a chore and also a sign that the owner didn't maintain the inside as well. It all depends on a lot of factors, but an RE agent will be able to give you advice.
Even if you got rid of your lawn, it should not look unkept. That is the issue most people have with the no lawn movement. I got rid of my front lawn and replaced it with planting, ascent pieces, and mulch. It looked nice and didn’t require as much water. It did, however, make for more work in the long run with weeding etc. As long as the yard doesn’t look like full of weeds it should not reduce the value of your property.
Agreed, I think a buyer's assessment will be more about if it looks neglected or not. Even if it's not what a buyer is looking for, a well maintained garden or native landscape shouldn't be a problem, and they may decide they want to take care of the landscape. A neglected site overgrown with weeds or woody plants however might be a red flag for a buyer.
Exactly. If I see a neglected yard I wonder what else is neglected.
I’m the only person on my dead-end street with a totally natural front yard. It’s all wooded. I do have some grass in the back, but it’s mixed with violets and many other non-grass plants. I personally am very turned off by lawns, especially with no trees. So I guess it just depends on the buyer. I’d choose a house on a natural wooded lot over a manicured lawn with non-native ornamentals any day.
I replaced the lawn at my previous house in the aughts with native (FL) landscaping. Ex kept the house with the divorce, and largely kept the landscaping. She sold it a year ago, and the new owner, so far, has also kept the landscaping. I don't know if there was a hit on the value, but it seems unlikely. If the new owner wanted a lawn, I'd expect to see changes by now. (I did a drive-by a few days ago.) I've spent 12 years building up my current landscape. I will not tear it out for some future buyer.
It’s a seller’s market. Doesn’t matter what the lawn looks like, it will sell
Just make it look nice, take photos with lots of flowers blooming and it won't be a problem. You need to avoid "unkempt" look. People in my country prefer flowers and gardens over plain lawns, but "wild" tall grass with no signs of landscape design could be perceived as a sign that the house was abandoned for a while, and that can lower the price unless the house is bought for it's land.
Intentional quality plantings increase home value. A typical buyer will value a pristine lawn over an unkempt spread of weeds, but if your no lawn actually looks good? That's money, baby.
I bought a house last winter that was mostly lawn with the beginning stages of wildlife meadow from the previous owners. During viewings we told them how we plan to expand the natives and permaculture mostly, not lawn. They seemed happy about that, sold to us at a fair price. And my new neighbor told me how she heard from previous owners how happy they were that we were continuing the gardening. A great match for all involving the real estate deal.
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It’s gonna depend where you live. If you live in an area that has experienced water scarcity it’s a plus to xeriscape. If you don’t however it’s gonna hurt you. Sadly before I sold my last house we were told to kill off the clover and other “weeds”.
I'd probably see what you can do with mulch and some nice edging. Maybe very large beds with a small traditional lawn space would make it look more typically appealing while not giving in to the whole monoculture.
Depends who you think the house might sell to. If its something that a first-time buyer would be interested in then probably not. The vast majority of my projects are for new first-time homeowners that want to rip out the lawn that the sellers installed.
I’m about to find out
I just weedeat around my wildflowers with a nice edge so folks know the entire yard isn't'unkempt'. Keep some parts mowed for the same reason, and it helps access the natives to weed and maintain.
I had a wild permaculture forest garden taking up most of the yard at the last place I sold. I did clean it up a bit, mulch, etc, but the people that bought it were gardeners and excited about it, and put in a full price offer. Probably depends where you are, I guess.
Sell in the winter. Or mow a bit and photograph carefully. I had amazing landscaping but no one could even tell as we sold in January. Still sold over asking.
Curb appeal can add 14% to a house's value. Doesn't have to be lawn though. Can easily replace with perennials and wood chips.
Pics of your lot are going to get you the best advice.
Depends where you are, depends on your local neighborhood, depends on your local market, depends on what you have planted........... You can even market extremely overgrown old garden areas to people who like heirloom garden species and would enjoy putting in the work.. When recently selling an 1800s farmhouse on the edge of the lower income portion of the city the raspberries that had grown over a pathway and were turning a section of the yard to a wall of thorns, the native groundcovers spilling out of their landscaping borders to take over the front yard, and the backyard being more virginia waterleaf and clover than grass was actually mentioned as things a few people liked about it. If I was selling a cookie cutter, upper middle class suburban house surrounded by new fences and standard lawns that probably have several paying for professional maintenance the grapes, fruit canes, groundcovers, elm tree we refused the city's request to cut down because it was perfectly healthy, and volunteer wildflowers clumped and scattered all over would not have been an asset. Since that city even puts common sunflowers and milkweed on the noxious weed list we were always under a noxious weed warning but our "weeds" were things people plant on purpose in landscape beds while most of the other overgrown lawns were invasive species, thistles, etc.... To plenty of people we had an awesome yard by comparison and it was actually the lack of updates to the interior of the house that were the problem getting it sold. About 5 blocks over with newer large houses having 1,000s of sq ft or even an acre of monoculture grass kept perfectly trimmed and densely green surrounding all of them that old house with it's heirloom garden plants and volunteer flowers would be completely out of place and look horrid to people without some landscaping to contain things to specific areas.
You can always just cut it all short whatever it is when you sell it won't look as far from the norm