How to Renovate a House (with landscaping)

all right I'm meeting with John we've been called out John's the realtor represents the customer who's a customer John Helman my job today is to somehow turn a Sal ear into a silk purse what we're doing with this project is we're going to try to transform it into something that will sell now this is completely different than what we would be doing if we were going to do a landscape renovation for a customer that was going to move into it let's check out what we've got into we've got a budget established John just to let you know the customer has given us a budget of between $1,500 for his hopes and dreams maximum of $2,500 sometimes I have to be the bearer of bad news it's not possible on this site there's no way we can do what he wants to be done and to get this into a turnkey property that's going to have enough curb appeal that when people come up to it they're going to look at it see that it's clean neat and tidy and leave enough space so that they can also fulfill their own dreams that's a key element whenever you do one of these is you've got to complete it to the point that the customer the potential customer can look at it and go oh I see the potential there's a huge difference I want to point out some of the things that we're not going to touch we're not going to be touching the siding this whole garage needs up at least a heavy paint job new siding would probably be the way to go it's going to need a new roof we got to take all these plants out we're going to end up taking out this fence we're going to end up taking out all these overgrown trees and bushes and we have a nice crab apple tree that ideally I would love to keep but it blocks my only way into this backyard and the backyard my friends is a jungle let's go check this out come on with me John let's walk and talk let's make sure that I'm on the the right page together so they share common area okay so we can't come through this way and we can't come through this way it's just not enough space we've got to be able to come in here with heavy equipment and literally do more removal than anything else cuz when you look at this backyard it's a mess where am I going to start I'm going to start by creating a backyard look at this this is I don't know there's a wall here a fabricated looks like they've laid down rubber matting over dirt gone it's out of there look at this deck you even know there's a deck it's buried underneath there it's probably suffering dry rot because whoever owned this house before let all this vegetation grow up all this vegetation is gone bare minimum amount of vegetation we come in here we've got trees that are on the property line but when you look more closely this tree is actually on this side of the fence line line it needs to go somebody has been doing a little bit of workout in this backyard but look at what they've done they just left the mess behind they haven't bothered to take it away we've got a fountain if you can imagine buried in the corner that's got to go all of this goes we have a built-in fireplace all of these little touches are great if you're going to live here but when you're going to sell a home they have to be removed because it's perfect for the homeowner but it's not perfect when you're trying to sell a property am I right with this stuff John shaking his head yes he's the silent type now one of the things that I need to touch base with on which may be a little bit controversial is you see this fence line I can't remove the vegetation on that fence line without just basically removing the fence line because it's intertwined in there I know Property Owners like to have a fence line I know they like to establish their boundary lines but in this case it's too far gone there's nothing I can do about this fence line without removing without removing the the chain link fence that's buried underneath as well let's walk to the front of the house let's keep this going so you see this brick I don't know what this is right here I have no clue a brick paper patio it's actually shared between the two properties and it's an isore if they want to have a chance to sell in this house St stuff like this needs to be gone it needs to be just clean and tidy it doesn't have to be overdone I'm going to show you a property that he wanted his house to look like so you know that you don't have to go that far it's this property right there it's got a nice rock wall nice flowers take the rock wall out you don't need that but you do need to have the nice flowers as we look at the front of this property look at the overgrown tree look at the overgrown bushes and shrubs you just remove them the key element to this is opening up the house so people can actually see it so that they can go hey you know what you know what would look nice I'd like to do this or I want to add this how many times have you walked into a house where somebody has redone it but the new owners come in they put new paint down they put new carpet done even though the paint and carpet were just redone because they want to add their own flavor that's the same thing with Landscaping you've got to get it to the point where people can see the potential and this house has potential it's got good bones it's got good structure but you can't find it and so we're going to do a cleanup job but a cleanup job like this is probably going to cost around $4,000 to do it right there that's not a build that he's going to like but if he wants to sell this house it's got to be done the story just gets better on this site so what we're going to do is when we we remove these plants we're actually going to leave the hostas that way we don't have to purchase any plants bring them in remember we're selling it this is not something that's he's going to own himself anymore we're just trying to get it out of his possession we're going to leave these plants in the front but we're going to yank these tall suckers but look what I found white landscape rock ooh so beautiful not that dates the house by about 20 to 30 years if they want to have a chance of selling this property that's got to go so I've got to pull all that up and I've got to bring in a double shredded hardwood mulch uh which is which softens the edges is also a longl lasting it's clean it's easy it's cheap it gets it in gets it done um and I'm going to end up doing that in this zone right here so you see they've he's got a sidewalk that separates his front mulch bed or his front planting bed then there's a buried sidewalk in here and then there's going to be nothing in here it's just going to be mulch that looks clean it looks tidy if they want to do something if they want to soften that edge up even more they can put a potted plant in there and why a potted plant because it's not permanent you can put if the house doesn't sell right away you can put flowers in as the seasons go you can Pro progress and change them to mums or whatever you want to do but you can update it and you can remove it when you after the house finally sells okay now I'm on the hunt for White Rock what I found buried underne underneath the grass clippings this probably was a Hayfield look at how they had this mold there a bunch of hostas so what we're going to do is we're going to take these we're going to pull them out and I found more White Rock we're going to eliminate that White Rock but we can replant the customer's own vegetation selectively not in a jungle like fashion like what we've got going on here so we're going to remove this we're going to also remove look at this I don't even get what is this what's the deal with this what is this a C patio in in out in no man's land and then we've got a bullet edging system just needs to go let's look at this deck let's see what we've got going on for this this guy got a lot of work cut out for him he's got a 2x4 railing here he's got posts here I'm venturing up if I hadn't demoed so many houses in my past I'd probably be scared of this deck but it looks sturdy enough this whole thing needs be redone I'm not even going inside blowing off you can see the pine tree pine tree is not his there's nothing he can do about it but weed whip lawnmower guys with chains cutting and removing the jungle cleaning it up it's going to make a huge difference for this guy everywhere I look there's more White Rock there's even more right there it's just ridiculous what they do out in these sites okay so that's going to bump up his price a little bit more but he's not going to sell this house unless we do it the right way so his, 15500 to $1,500 ideal budget to $2,500 Max I'm not even going to try to touch it for that there's no sense in it let somebody else come in here and lose his tail my budget number is going to be four to 4500 depending on how much White Rock we White Rock we discover we have to pull out but that's what's going to get this property so when he puts when John over here puts the for sale sign in the front yard he's going to have a line of people putting offers down on it they don't do that it's just going to sit and deteriorate in the market and go down that's it I'm out