Three Ways to Make Your House Irresistible to Buyers
So what is curb appeal? It’s that quality in a house that gives a potential buyer a love-at-first-sight sensation when they drive up. Simply put, it’s giving your house a pretty face. Studies show spending 5 percent of your home’s value in landscaping could produce a return of 150 percent or more when you sell the place.
Here are three ways to turn up your home’s sex appeal without emptying your bank account:

1. Come up with a concept for your landscape.

Have a plan, so everything you do to the yard and your home’s exterior is deliberate. Hiring a landscape designer to draw up a plan is a good place to start. You can also hire designers to give you ideas on exterior paint colors and remodeling tips for the entryway.

2. Focus on the front door.

Make sure people know where your front door and create a welcoming entrance that guides people to the home’s entry. You can do this by creating paths, patios or beds of plants that shape the house’s face. Or it can be as simple as painting your door a bright color and putting out a big welcome mat. The point is to make people feel as if they are arriving somewhere special, not just stepping up on a bland stoop.

3. Deal with the drive way.

In most new homes the driveway is the first thing you see — which is good if you’re a car, not a human. You need to downplay the driveway, or distract a potential buyer’s eyes away from all that concrete. You can do this by creating a path to the front door that leads eyes away from the driveway to the house’s face. Or you can stain the ugly gray concrete to make it look like stone or paint it with a pigmented sealer.