Even if you don’t know or care anything about real estate, you’ve almost certainly had two real-estate phrases drilled into your head:
“location, location, location” and “curb appeal.”
With even the occasional flash of HGTV through channel-flipping roulette, we’d give 3/1 odds you’d catch one or the other.
Location and curb appeal are constantly underlined because, yes, they both play a major role in how much your home is worth and how quickly it might sell.
With the former, we’re working with a concrete thing that homeowners and Realtors can’t really do much to affect. But curb appeal is something we can tweak and perfect to make your Nashville home as enticing as possible the minute it hits the MLS.
It’s worth the attention, time and effort.
This, from a recent piece in Realty Times, really drives the point home:
“Not only can the outside of your home influence its value or the likelihood that you’ll get the price you deserve on the sale, it can even influence whether it’s shown in the first place.”
We’re a team of Nashville Realtors, and we’ve had years of honing our ability to look past the surface, to see hidden potential (and hidden problems). But when we’re looking at listings for our buyers, even we get pulled in by listings that have perfect curb appeal.
Nashville homebuyers (and Realtors) are human, and when we see something immediately beautiful, it grabs our attention, and makes us assume that similar care has been taken with every inch of the home, visible and less-visible. (Even if that’s not always true.)
If you’re thinking about selling your Nashville-area home, we can put a trained eye on your curb appeal and offer suggestions for improvement, before you list. Just give us a call or send us an email.
But since pictures say so much, we thought we’d share some examples — homes on the market in Davidson County and Williamson County now that, in our professional opinion, score a 10 on the curb-appeal scale (and/or showcase some worthwhile curb-appeal tips).
1929 14th Ave N
Nashville, TN 37208
$315,000
This one in the Buchanan Arts District area is our listing, and we love it, but it’s here in particular to point out one of our favorite curb-appeal tricks. If you don’t have much time or money to spend before listing: Bring in a bold front door color. Picture this home with a door that matched the white trim: It’d be fine, but not nearly as interesting, fun or eye-grabbing. Picking a paint color that’s a little loud — within reason, of course — can make a seriously outsized impact.
3110 Ivey Point Rd
Goodlettsville, TN 37072
$449,900
You can’t always decide when to list your home, or when your listing photos get taken — in every life and every home sale, a lot of moving parts can force your hand. But if you have flexibility, and you get a chance to list and snap photos when you know your home will really shine, it’s a great way to maximize your curb appeal. That’s as true for homes with gorgeous landscaping that benefit from a spring bloom as it is with homes like this one, in Goodlettsville. It was a little bit of genius to get their shots during our short burst of snow, which amplifies the property’s ski-chalet vibes in an irresistible way.
620 Fatherland St
Nashville, TN 37206
$699,996
Click through the photos here, so you can see the front-porch staging, and how it really defines the space as an outdoor living area, plus what it looks like when everything’s flowering, brightening the walk up to this historic East Nashville home.
5016 Buds Farm Ln
Franklin, TN 37064
$865,000
You may or may not be a person with the time or inclination to perfectly Edward Scissorhands your property, four seasons a year. But before you list your home, it’s beyond worth it, and this Franklin listing underlines that fact. That care and those details tend to tell a buyer: We’ve gone the extra mile to take care of this home, and we haven’t left any headaches for you to wrestle with.
22 Whitworth Blvd
Nashville, TN 37205
$879,000
To be fair, this Whitworth listing in Nashville has the benefit of a gorgeous, meticulously landscaped pond across the street that makes the home feel like a luxury villa at first glance. (It doesn’t do a ton to disavow that notion once you walk through the doors either.) But that setup wouldn’t land quite as well without the balanced, manicured landscaping, setting off that stately front door, or those stunning porch balusters.
1706 Hillmont Dr
Nashville, TN 37215
$919,000
If you follow ACRE on Instagram, you probably already saw this Green Hills dollhouse. We were really taken with it — particularly how the crisp white footbridge draws you toward the lively, shrub-lined pea-gravel walkway, which draws you toward an arched arbor that’s just waiting for some flowering Bower vines, which draws you right into the front door. The intent — besides just having a home that makes you feel proud to walk up to — is to draw buyers in, and every piece of this home’s curb appeal is just about impossible to resist.
634 Stonewater Blvd
Franklin, TN 37064
$1,085,000
Westhaven has a reputation for being picture-perfect, and it’s earned it with homes like this — newer, but with classic appeal. That hedgerow out front adds a perfect bit of definition; it’s clean but still welcoming, and frames and softens the home’s Tudor-y angles.
605 Calverton
Brentwood, TN 37027
$1,100,000
The playhouse in this Brentwood backyard has better curb appeal than a lot of Middle Tennessee homes. The main home, of course, sets the stage — we really fell for the landscaping design in particular, and how the tall arborvitaes and lush Magnolia tree give the property that much more elegance.
Looking to buy or sell a home in the Nashville area? Need help sorting out your curb appeal? We’d be thrilled to help on all fronts — reach ACRE here.
Listings via MLS, not under agreement with ACRE and/or Benchmark Realty, LLC, except where noted.