Spring is here in Rhode Island and everything is starting to come alive again, including the market! We actually got some positive economic news this week.  Existing homes sales rose 2.8 percent for single family homes and 3.7 percent for condominiums last month, adding to the speculation that the housing cycle may finally be bottoming out. These gains marked a 8.2 % decline in the median price of homes sold, but it is these more realistic prices that are pulling buyers off the sidelines. While the median sales price fell for most parts of the country, the Northeast showed an increase of almost $16,000 (3.12%) to an average $270,000. The strongest segment of the market here has been for low-end, first-time buyers, and the high end. Homes correctly priced over 1 million dollars are seeing plenty of offers.

Spring is  busy because families needing to move will start looking now so that they can time their move with the school year. Combine that with the fact that  New England never looks better than in the spring when everything is blooming, you have the greatest chance of selling your home in the spring.
To hedge your bet all year round, I spoke with landscape architect Kate Field this week, and she gave me some great ideas for a landscaping plan that  provides visual interest for each of the four seasons. The goal is to have flowering trees throughout spring and summer, fall foliage in autumn and good structure in winter:

• Hardscapes: Make sure the bones are in place, driveways, fences, walls, and decks form the framework for your yard, and provide year round interest.
• Immediate Curb Appeal: Create a great first impression or no one will even want to go inside. Clean it up to make it appealing to a prospective buyer,
• Low to no cost improvements: Make it neat and tidy, re-seed bare spots , prune the vines, Power wash your front walk, polish your door nob, put up shiny new house numbers, crisply edge the lawn , add dark brown mulch.
• Pansies add great color, either in pots or along the base.
• Flowering trees add great impact, Dogwoods, Cherry trees, Magnolias, and Crabapples have great impact in the Spring.
• Plant tall grasses or bushes around above ground pools to make them more appealing.
• Add a water fountain to mask noise, great for homes located close to busy roads.

This week’s Real Estate Insight:

First impressions are not only important for buyers, but for appraisers too. The Council of Tree and Landscape Appraisers says a mature tree can have an appraised value of $1,000 to $10,000

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 at 5:49 pm and is filed under Real Estate Insight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.