You will get a different answer depending on the tastes and preferences of who responds. A gardener will spend more time and money on the garden than a golfer will but less money than the golfer spends on golfing. I know people with $200,000 worth of motor car in the garage of a $2m home that find it difficult to justify spending any money at all on the garden. If you buy a run down property to re-sell and spend some money on putting in new windows etc you will need to put some effort and money into the garden even if this only means cutting the grass otherwise it won't get looked at. In other words I don't think there is a rule of thumb.

The general number that is often tossed around by those that toss such things around is 10%, but I would agree with Ink. I don't see any consistency at all.

It takes a certain minimum to grade and stabilize your typical 1/2 acre to an acre lot whether it has a $250k home on it or a $3m home on it. The $3m can be stately and beautiful with a neat simple planting or it can go all out with stone work, pools, spas,....

There is a greater emphasis on outdoor living ammenities with a growing segment of the population covering all financial demographics. This can have some people spending greater than 50% of the cost of the home in additional landscaping. Others may spend far less than 10% which I see more often in the middle range.

It is pretty hard not to spend 10% if your house costs less than $250k, Yet spending $75k when you own a $750k house may seem over the top for some.

Interesting thread. I find the 10% rule rather difficult to follow--given houses in cities/suburbs are generally on smaller lots, however worth more than someone living on a farm with a larger lot. We are in the Bay Area with a 6700 sq. ft lot yet house in the $1M range (after remodel). I cannot fathom spending anywhere close to $100K on our landscaping and doubt I'd recoup the investment if we did.

It would not be so difficult if you had 20,000 SF around that same house. A custom swimming pool can easily cost $100k. Walkways, patios, seating walls, retaining walls, pergolas, fencing, outdoor kitchen, ... it adds up very quickly and a lot of people want it all. Others don't.

I don't think one should consider the cost of equipment for maintaing one's space in the 10% number---said eequipment (lawnmower, trimmer,etc) usually travels with the owner when the house is sold.

Nor do I think one should count one's expenditures on annuals. I think only "permanent" additions should be included in that figure--shrubs, trees, hardscape. Of course, I may hold this opinion to delude myself!

In 2004 we spent a significant chunk of change (for us!) replacing a major retaining wall and having the area in front of our house re-graded to address a drainage issue. We spent more than 10% of the house's assessed value...but the house wouldn't have been worth much if we'd let the driveway collapse into it.

melanie

I think the 10% "rule of thumb" was a bit more applicable before housing costs skyrocketed in recent years and most properties, at least in more urban areas, experienced double digit appreciation. Regardless, inflation has kept a similar pace and the costs associated with landscaping have escalated as well. IME, many homeowners are unaware of the costs and have unrealistic budgets when it comes to landscaping expense. Here it is not at all uncommon to sink $25-40K in a modest landscape renovation and that figure can climb rapidly if extensive grading, hardscaping or larger specimen plants are involved. For larger gardens with more extensive designs and amenities, $100K is not at all unreasonable.

I think it also depends a lot on what you are counting in that 10%. But, I'm fairly certain I didn't spend that much at our old house. But, what I don't know is how much it cost to do the initial grading, put in sod (front yard), grass seed (back yard), and (iirc) 5 trees and 2 large shrubs, all of which were included in the original cost of the home. (And those trees were a lot more than most new construction includes around here!)

Major expenses after construction were the deck (paid for materials only, bartered the labor), and about $100/year on plantings over 8 years, plus probably another $100/year on mulch and such.

So, if you include everything, we are probably over that 10% number...

At the new house, I have fairly long-term plans, but no major grading. (Existing house, not new construction this time.) Not sure yet whether we'll get to that 10% number or not! And as someone once said, form follows funding...

estreya inspired me to open Quicken and find out how much we've spent on landscaping - we've been in our new home just one year.
The grading was included in the price of the house, so that did not figure into my calculations.

What IS included has been having the deck built, bringing in about 20 large boulders (for erosion control), renting rototillers and other tools, 15 yards of topsoil, 15 yards of compost (for mulch), several loads of gravel, supplies for French drains , about 8 trees, about 50 shrubs and perennials. Other than for the deck, we've done all of the work ourselves (with some help from my 11 year old grandson at $5/hr).

Total spent to date just a hair under 10%. I cannot imagine how much it would have cost had we paid someone else to do the work.

Zone_8grandma, i'm with you. I'm under 10% as well, so i feel a certain sense of relief. I don't plan on moving EVER AGAIN, so "recouping the investment" wasn't my concern. I was just wondering if my expenditures were excessive, and it seems they're not.

It certainly helps to "do it yourself" wherever possible, and so far, i haven't made any costly mistakes. Just the occasional inconvenience cost. :)

I don't mean to sound snarky, but if you are not planning to sell the home, then why does it matter? You do the things you do to make the home the way YOU want it to be - inside and out - at a cost YOU are comfortable with. If you spent 5% the value of the home on the landscaping, and were happy with the way it looked, would you feel you had to spend an additional 5% just so you've spent the *right* amount? If you've spent 10% do you have to stop even if you want something more? Unless you are hoping to get your money back when you sell, it really doesn't matter.

We built our home as a permanent retirement home, BUT, I expect it to sell someday. If my son is selling it because I'm dead or incapacitated, I wouldn't want it to be so wierd that the market value is negatively affected.

Having said that, we are landscaping it to our tastes and to future maintenance requirements. I just found it rather interesting to discover that we are spending the approximate "rule of thumb" as far as costs. (When DH grumbles about how much we're spending, I can point that out to him) LOL

Ink, in my case, the 10% is based on the cost to build the home. We also own a rental house in a very hot real estate market. The rental is 55 years old and has 1600 sq ft, yet it has a market value equal to our new home (due to its location). I would not even consider spending 10% of its market value on landscaping.

Prairie_love, why so aggressive? It matters because i was curious whether or not i was spending within loose "entry level" guidelines for landscape design and follow-up maintenance. Your post is as insulting as it is absurd.

estreya, as I said, I did not intend to be snarky - or aggressive or insulting and certainly it is not absurd. Not understanding is not absurd. I simply do not understand (and still do not) why it matters if you are not intending to sell. Perhaps it is just my own viewpoint, but I would compare this to asking if the amount of money I spent on my furniture is appropriate. Yes, furniture can go with you if you move, but if you are not moving then it is the same as landscaping.

I was simply trying to understand why it is important.

Well, landscaping isn't always aesthetics. Things already mentioned, such as proper grading, repairs, etc., are somewhat imperative unless you want a house that's falling down (not always literally, but perhaps sometimes). Hence, Ink's comment as to what we're considering "landscaping," and the fact that developers sometimes leave work undone, or done poorly.

- Audric

It's important only in that it gives one a frame of reference, or at least used to. As stated previously, many homeowners are so unfamiliar with the process and costs associated with landscaping - some even to the point of assuming because it involves plants, it has no real value - that a rough guideline such as this is helpful. Obviously, as with any rule of thumb, there are a huge number of variables that can impact it. And this guideline is typically quoted in respect to new construction and therefore a brand new landscape but there is nothing to say that it can't apply to the renovation of an existing landscape as well.

And generally this figure relates to the initial cost of the design, the prep work and labor and the material and plants necessary to implement the design. Repairs, maintenance, tools, mulch, etc. are not included.

~ nods ~

I'm one of those who was completely in the dark about the costs associated with even the most rudimentary landscape design. Imagine my surprise when i learned the phrase "dirt cheep" didn't necessarily apply to dirt! "It costs how much per cubic yard? But it's just dirt!" :)

It's not maximizing profits that motivated my question. I'm simply trying to further calibrate my understanding about the costs associated with "finishing" an outdoor space. It helps me understand to what extent i'm stretching my dollar.

I know that here in the dense suburbs of FL, you would pretty much have to match the comparables in your neighborhood. So, if you're building in a high end neighborhood, with a lot of attention being paid to landscaping, you'd better do something equivalent. Likewise, I wouldn't over-do if I were building in a lower-end area. As for cost, whoever did the landscaping in the neighborhood on new builds could give you a ball-park, which in turn could be converted to a percentage of the total. We are going to build in rural SC in a few years, and our landscape costs after final grading will be limited to whatever we spend on cover crop and grass seed. I suppose over the years, we will add a few select shrubs or gardens, but we will work with mostly natives, some of which we'll simply move from the woods. With a 350' driveway, and dense woods, our landscaping is way down the priority list. We'll mostly go with 'Landscaping by God'! YMMV.