Why an Irrigation System? | Carefree Irrigation Inc.

Why Homes Need an Irrigation System:

Nothing Else Impacts Resale Value More

It's visually easy to see how landscaping can benefit a home. Simply put - it looks more attractive and appealing to the eye. A home with green grass is more eye catching than the exact same home with dead grass or no grass. Include some well-manicured trees, shrubs, and colorful flowers and you can significantly increase the curb appeal of your home and estate. An in ground irrigation system allows you to keep up on watering and helps you easily and efficiently maintain your property.

Increase Home Resale Value by 15%

According to PBS-TV personality Bob Thomsen, former host of the award-winning Victory Garden show, quality landscaping on a home can increase the resale value of that property as much as 15%! Of course, not every homeowner is planning to move soon (maybe not at all), but virtually every homeowner is still concerned with the home's current market value.

Thomsen noted that the economic value of landscaping is so great, it has prompted numerous studies and tests. And the data has consistently shown that landscaping provides a home with a recovery rate (the % return on an investment when it is applied to a home's resale value) of 100 to 200%.

No other home improvement project offers that high a rate of recovery.

Maximize Resale Value with Landscaping

The various recovery rates for a homeowner's investment in some of the most popular home improvement projects:

Landscaping = 100-200% recovery rate

Kitchen Remodel = 75-125% recovery rate

Bathroom Remodel = 10-120% recovery rate

Swimming Pool = 20-50% recovery rate

Source: Nursery Retailer, March 2002

"Although homeowners will often remodel the kitchen, bathroom or bedrooms in hopes of commanding a higher asking price," said Thomsen, "One nationwide study indicates that 62% of all homeowners believe that landscaping is as good, or better, an investment as remodeling a kitchen or bath."

And, according to Thomsen, when you consider how interior remodeling can disrupt a home for weeks or months, you can put a potential customer at ease when you let them know that landscaping is a less intrusive project. The work takes less time to complete, plus there's a better return on their investment.

Green Today? Green Tomorrow?

Of course, any contractor can install mature sod and plants, then walk away from the property with a picture perfect landscape. But, how will those grounds look in a month? Or a year?

You may invest hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars in a beautiful landscape. An irrigation system will be the insurance plan to make sure your investment thrives.

Real estate appraisers judge a home's landscape on it's appearance, condition and maintenance. They also compare that home to other homes in the neighborhood and look at the functional use of the landscape items incorporated into the plan, including the irrigation system.

A professionally installed and maintained system can be an asset to the property, while a poorly designed and installed system can actually be a liability. This is something for a homeowner to think about when they want to cut a corner today that might come back and haunt them in the future.