Does Your Portland Home Have Curb Appeal?

From cottages to castles some Portland homes have so much curb appeal that passersby can't help but stop and admire them. When visiting property with great curb appeal, prospective buyers often experience "Love at First Sight" and this disposes them to love the entire home before they even walk through the front door.

Curb appeal is the result of a perfect blend of architectural style, landscaping, up-keep and color choices. Money alone does not guarantee outstanding curb appeal. I've seen very expensive Area homes with costly landscaping that fail to appeal and I've seen very modest priced Area homes with outstanding curb appeal. In part, the landscaping aspect of curb appeal is a matter of personal taste. Some people love homes shaded by full-grown trees with a riot of plant life underneath. Others prefer a more controlled landscaping look so whatever look you prefer for your house, you are sure to find others who like the same look.

Every prospective buyer who visits your Portland home is struck by a variety of impressions regardless of whether your landscaping is eye-catching or merely so-so. Plants that overrun the walkway, trees that badly need pruning and visible suggest to the prospective buyer that this home will take a lot of landscaping maintenance and yet if your yard is well-maintained, the prospective buyer is inclined to simply admire the fact and move on. If your front porch or front door need paint, the prospective buyer is likely to notice the paint job inside and out and think about how much maintenance that will take on a yearly basis. The important message here is that things that look bad or run down call attention to all the work that needs to be done while things that are well maintained conjure up ideas of how pleasant it would be to live there.

Good curb appeal is definitely an advantage to home sellers when prospective buyers visit your Portland home and can be an advantage in advertising in the newspaper and on the Internet. However, it is important to note that even a home with great curb appeal can look bad in an advertisement if the photographer did a bad job with the camera. A photograph of a home on a dreary day will look quite different from a photo of the same home when the sun is shining. Sometimes it is better to take a picture of a home from an angle rather than a straight on shot that may turn out to be more about the garage door than about the house itself.