The most obvious places where lighting can be improved to make your home more valuable are the landscaping, the entrance or atrium, the kitchen, the bathroom, or any featured or shared room in the house. But on every listing I researched, outdoor or landscape lighting was in the top three.
If your lighting both indoor and outdoor are energy-saving, designed for the property, and properly installed it can actually raise your property’s value by 5% – 20%. Just upgrading your landscape lighting can increase the home value by at least 3% if not much more.
So how does outdoor lighting increase a home’s value, exactly? Let’s find out!
Lighting Improves the Ambiance and Aesthetic of a Home
Lighting can make a statement. It can appeal to the visual senses. It can help motivate buyers. Every home has a theme or a particular aesthetic charm. And you want your lighting to reinforce that aesthetic, not take away from it. I can’t tell you how many times just replacing older fixtures or refurbishing those older fixtures just gave the home we lived in a new and improved charm.
Nothing shows the beauty of a home to potential buyers like well-placed landscaping lights that highlight well-maintained landscaping and features. Entrance lighting can take your home from plain to elegant. Replace some outdoor fixtures or add some small spotlighting and you wouldn’t believe how much the look of a house can change.
If your lights are too bright, you can actually detract from the appeal of your home so be sure you are selecting lighting with the correct lumens value. If you are not sure what that means then be sure to head over to my article talking about that subject.
Lighting Is Important to the Safety and Security of Any Home
When home buyers are looking to purchase in a new neighborhood, they are already a bit nervous about being in a new place with unsure expectations. Safety and security-conscious lighting can help calm a lot of fears for new home buyers.
Entrance lighting, lighting that defines a path, and floodlights in driveways and darker areas of the home make your home safer and can be a valuable asset to possible home buyers. If you have concerns over the appropriate amount of light to use in a particular area, I have an article showcasing the proper lumens for a given area.
Lighting Is a Cost-Effective Home Improvement
Lighting can be a very low-cost home improvement that can increase the value of your home.. It beautifies and provides a sense of safety as well. However, lighting can completely change the atmosphere of a yard for the better! Often an improvement to lighting can tip the balance in favor of selling a home. And it doesn’t have to cost very much
If you’re capable of making a plan of action or designing a lighting plan for your yards, go for it. If not, hire a landscape designer or lighting designer to make the magic happen. The point is to be sure that you have everything mapped out for where you’d like to see lighting, what kind of lighting you want in those places, and be ready to get the proper wiring and transformers for the project.
Be sure to get the appropriate lighting for the place you want to upgrade. Then, if you don’t have the licensing and expertise to do it yourself, hire a proper contractor to get the outdoor and landscaping lighting handled.
You can go with solar options if the area is brightly lit for at least 6 hours of the day. Just keep in mind that cheaper solar lighting can often be disappointing – fading out in the middle of the night. The batteries don’t often last as long as they claim to. So, it would be worthwhile to invest in a low-voltage system. Most of these systems are easy to install and cost less than $200.
Adding Modern Technology with Energy Efficiency in Mind to Your Lighting Plan Can Increase the Value Even More
Making sure that your lighting is all running with LED bulbs and have the most energy-efficient and “green” rating is important in this day and age. It helps you with your energy costs and a savvy homebuyer will want their new home to already be energy efficient.
Another simple method besides the use of LED bulbs in everything can help get your home more energy-efficient through the lighting therein. For one thing, dimmers or dusk till dawn controls can save a lot of energy. Instead of burning at a higher energy for brighter lumens all night in areas where you want more security (the end of the house or the driveway), install motion detectors to increase the brightness or even turn the light on, to begin with.
In Conclusion
Yes, Adding lighting can increase the value of your home, especially when you are ready to put that home on the market. The lighting should add to the aesthetic, help with safety and security, be energy efficient, and be of appropriate cost so that in the use of the lighting by yourself and your family or through the resale of the house, you get a good return on your investment.
"Growing up a country-girl means you enjoy the outdoors as much as possible, and no matter where you go in life, the outdoors is always part of you. I began doing research on things I wanted to do to make my outdoor space my own, no matter where we moved. And that research led me to write this blog to share with you!"
