Selling Myrtle Beach Homes and Real Estate

Shrubs and Strategy
Spring is the time of the year in our area when the tourists are coming down for Easter weekend. Many of them are from up north where they've spent weeks of bleakly cold and nasty weather, and the warm weather starts a month later there than it does in the south.

If you're trying to sell your home in Myrtle Beach, this is the prime time of year to get prepared. You've invested in updated appliances, cleared out personal articles, and painted and wallpapered the inside until it's squeaky clean and smells as good as a new car. What else can you do?

Don't Under-estimate first appearances
Whether it's in the photos you display for the MLS listing, the slideshow your realtor has on the website, or the first thing a potential buyer sees when they pull into the driveway, put some time and money into landscaping.

According to Southern Living Magazine, a 1999 survey conducted by Gallop Polls showed that good landscaping could add 7 to 15% to the market value of a home for sale. Smart Money Magazine advised investing 5% of the home's value in landscaping to reap a 150% percent return. If those numbers sound impressive, then read on.

Never have I seen what a difference a professional landscaping company can make until recently when the condominium complex I live in changed the HOA Board and went from having several full time amateur groundspeople to hiring a company to take over our landscaping. Our complex had grown shabby and mis-matched with attempts to make flower gardens, chopping down shrubs and just plain messing up the looks of the place.

Within a month of having a professional company take over, the look of the complex has become uniform. Plants are being placed correctly for the conditions, flowers are blooming at the entrance, trees and shrubs have been trimmed and shaped, and some of the holes created by removing perfectly good holly bushes and shrubs are being filled in for a look that is already making a difference in our overall appearance and sales potential.

Unless you've had professional training in lawn and plant care, or have the proverbial green thumb, you should hire a landscaping company to clean up your home's appearance. Don't go to Lowes and buy the little white bric-a-brac and some cheap flowers and turn your yard into Granny's pet project. Especially when it comes to real estate in Myrtle Beach or other resort areas, a buyer is expecting a certain look, and if your home isn't reflecting that look, they will look past it for the one that does.

Do have lots of colorful flowers and a green, green lawn.
But let a professional choose for you and do the all important edging and matching of colors that will add so much more than those tiny purple flowers under your yellow shutters and next to the pink hydrangias that make the neighbors wince from across the road.

Paint the porch, bring on the potted plants, and make a big ceremony out of the coming summer, but do it with a professional eye and make your house the one that gets noticed in photos and from drive-bys. Keep the walkways and other exterior elements to a single theme and watch the details.

Your potential buyers are watching too.

For more tips on selling Myrtle Beach real estate, or to get new Myrtle Beach MLS Listings in your email, visit our website at http://www.myrtlebeachcondos.net
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Also see our Beach Life Blog.