Making your garden presentable ready to sell your house

Looking to sell your home? Make sure you give some serious thought to improving your garden - it could help get more people through the door leading to a much swifter sale.

Gardens are often the first and last thing that people look at when it comes to buying a home, so make sure you put all of your garden DIY skills into practice to ensure that your garden looks neat and tidy.

Is it worth improving your garden when trying to sell a house?

Essentially it's up to you whether or not you improve your garden when selling your house. Think of it kind of like an investment: if you spend a few hundred pounds on getting your garden looking great there's a chance that viewings will be much more frequent than they would be if your garden looks like a jungle. If your house has a front garden then it's even more important to ensure that it's attractive and tidy - if people can't see beyond the garden to see your house, why on earth would they want to view it?

Garden DIY for everyone

You don't have to go blowing lots of money on a garden DIY spree - the most important thing is just do a bit of tidying up to make sure it doesn't look messy. Here are five great pieces of DIY that everyone can do in order to make their garden look more presentable:

• Cut the grass: Does your garden look like a jungle? If so, beg, borrow or steal a lawn mower and get the grass cut.
  
  
• Spread chippings: Old tarmac and cracked paving stones are eye sores - if these plague the look of your garden, why not invest in some cheap chippings and spread them over problem areas?
  
  
• Pressure wash paving slabs: Paving slabs often come up a treat when you spend a little time pressure washing them down - make sure you do this, as it can add a lot of colour to your garden as well as making it look smarter.
  
  
• Tidy up the borders: Your borders don't need to be full of plants, but they do need to look neat and tidy. Pull out all of the old weeds and plant a few token shrubs to make your garden a little more pleasing on the eye.
  
  
• Tidy up leaves: If you're selling your house during the autumn it may well be worth spending a day or two clearing up leaves in your garden. A blanket of leaves may look good on the front of a Christmas card, but it doesn't look very inviting for people who view your home.
  

If you don't have time to clear up your garden yourself, why not look into hiring a gardener on a one-off basis to have them do it for you? While you don't have to spend time cleaning up or improving your garden prior to selling your home, there's no doubt that a little garden DIY can seriously speed up the sale - making your life a whole lot easier, without having to break your back or the bank.

Photo credit: Josh Cantrell

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