Boost your home's curb appeal

Whether you plan to sell your house this year or after your last child leaves the nest, being a homeowner includes keeping the house in tiptop shape.

Yes, you can boost your sale price by updating your kitchens and bathrooms, but buyers will never even see your home's interior if the exterior scares them off.

Every house needs curb appeal. You want your house to say "welcome" to prospective buyers.

Today's buyers start their home shopping on their computers or smartphones.

"The first picture they see is the front exterior, so if that's not good, they won't go any further," said David Yocum, a real estate agent with Redfin's Chicago office.

"If there are no pictures online, the buyer assumes there's something really wrong with the house and isn't interested at all," Yocum added.

Following are some suggestions from experts in the field and homeowners who have upped the curb appeal of their homes.

"Even if you don't use it, there should be a clearly defined path to your front door. After dark, the entry should have sufficient lighting. The address numerals should be visible and easy to read," Wade said. "If your front door needs to be replaced, now's the time."

Buyers will notice if your house needs a new roof or siding. These are costly, but they can make or break the sale. Long-term warranties tell the buyers they don't have to worry about redoing these projects.

One of Wade's biggest bugaboos is the garage door, which can hog the screen in your house photo. "It's a necessary evil," he said. "But a substantial one will look better than a 'builder-grade' door. The new wood-look doors look real but are not as heavy as real wood."

Ideally, your house has a front porch, said Wade. "Short of that, you can add a portico that's big enough to keep your guests dry when it's raining."

"We did a lot of the work ourselves," said Chris Berry of the 19th-century house he and his wife, Rebekah, remodeled in Elgin, Ill. "But first, we got professional advice."

"And we hired a landscape designer to draft a plan that took summer and winter light into consideration, then planted the plants ourselves to save money," Berry said.

To define the Berrys' corner lot, the landscape designer suggested they install an aluminum fence with a wrought-iron look. The fence frames the front-yard view of the house and saves their plants from being trampled by kids who attend the grade school across the street.

If you can't afford the pros, take advantage of apps and manufacturers' websites that let you post a photo of your house, then "paint" it different colors or add amenities.

As you undo the remuddling your house may have suffered, "don't fight the house's original style," said John Potter, architect with Morgante Wilson Architects in Evanston, Ill. "A professional designer can help you work with it."

When Potter designed a remodel of Renee and Garrick Lau's 1896 Italianate house in Wilmette, Ill., he chose materials his predecessors would have used in the late 1800s.

Potter kept the home's original, wavy-glass windows. What they lack in energy efficiency they have in character, he said.

Sometimes the house's original exterior is there, but hidden.

"Under a layer of aluminum siding was the original siding and architectural details including sunbursts and half-round windows," said Berry.

The Berrys do their own home-improvement jobs to save money, but he estimates it would cost about $25,000 to repair original clapboards, replace rotted areas, re-create damaged ornamentation and paint the whole exterior of their 2,000-square-foot house.

Before you embark on home improvements that will enhance your home's curb appeal, consider how much money you'll recoup when you sell the place.

A new roof costs $19,528 on average, said the report, but you'll get 71.6 percent ($13,975) of that back at resale. Windows are costly, too, but yield a 72.9 percent payback if they're vinyl and 78.8 percent if they're wood.

If you are not selling the house soon, add the value of having that amenity while you live in the house. Many homeowners say they wish they had made upgrades years ago instead of making them before selling.

There are two components to curb appeal — the house itself and the plants that give the property life. For the lush lawn that buyers want, consider a professional lawn service for fertilizing and weed control.

If you have at least three months until you list your house, the service can seed and aerate it, too.