Create a Landscaping Budget for Your New Construction Home

Building a new home is a very exciting time – from choosing some of the interior touches like carpet, color and cabinets to helping to plan the landscaping, it can be fun to make these many decisions.

In order to make the outside look as amazing as the inside, you have got to set aside enough money in the budget for landscaping your new home. Some home builders will give owners a line item for landscaping, but it’s often only around $800 or so—which is definitely not enough to pay for everything that needs to be done. It buys you a skim coat of loam, hydroseed, and 4 small plants that came from the home improvement store for the front of your beautiful new house.

A more reasonable budget for professional landscaping is around 2 to 5 percent of the total cost of the home, which in the case of a $400,000 house would be between $8,000 and $20,000. We suggest taking the $800 credit and using it for something inside the home, and then using your 2 to 5 percent as wisely as possible. Consider the following budgetary suggestions:

Two Percent

The best way to spend 2 percent of your new home’s price on landscaping is to focus on the most important and basic features: a nice lawn and some hardy plants. For example, using the figure above of $8,000, you can have the front and backyard areas professionally graded and then have loam and hydroseed installed by Groundhog Landscaping, which over time will grow into a thick carpet of grass. Also, use some of the funds for shrubs and other plants that will be placed around the foundation of the home as well as some trees that can be added in the lawn area for shade. Trees and shrubs will take some time to grow, so it is a wise investment to put them in sooner rather than later.

Three to Four Percent

If you can swing more like three or four percent of your total home’s cost for landscaping, you can do all of the above and then have anywhere from $4,000 to $8,000 more to play with. We would suggest using the additional funds to install a brick paver walkway to the front door, as an alternative to a traditional asphalt walk. Our hardscape installation crew has plenty of experience installing brick pavers, and we can work with you on selecting a color and style that will complement the exterior of your new home. A brick walkway adds a huge amount of curb appeal, and it will also increase the overall value of the home.

Five percent

If you have up to $20,000 to spend on landscaping, we suggest the aforementioned projects plus additional features like a patio and/or retaining walls. Patios, fire pits,  or other hardscape features add a welcoming feeling to your new home. Retaining walls may be necessary to complete the construction of the home, so they may need to be built during the first phase along with trees and grass.

These budgetary suggestions are benchmarks only. To get a more accurate quote on your landscaping projects, contact Groundhog Landscaping before you build!

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