Hellobee Boards

You're not crazy. At all. Landscaping is pretty darn expensive! It cost us just over 4K to put in sprinklers, hydroseed our backyard, bring in a little topsoil, and put some curbing in for beds. That's without plants or finishing out the beds which we will be doing ourselves. And fwiw, 4K was the best estimate we got and we live in a pretty low cost of living area. I'd say your budget seems on target and possibly may be a little low!

That doesn't seem high at all. At our old house, we had a small patch (10x10 roughly) that didn't seem to grow grass no matter what we did. We ended up getting a couple landscape stones and having them make a planting area. We also replaced some shrubs (maybe 6) along the front with some boxwoods and a small tree/large shrub (not sure what it is technically considered). I don't recall the exact price but I want to say it was around $2200 for just that little bit.

we are working on our curb appeal too. Have gotten a quote for tree pruning(2 trees over 20ft) and removal of a downed tree for $1000. So I can see the cost. I don't know if I would take out against equity for it unless you think it will add that and more value to your home.

i think the pricing is about right, but i wouldn't take out a home equity loan just to do it. esp since its not "necessary" (meaning you can live with it for a bit). i'd save up the money then do it! or maybe do a little bit at a time

I think your estimate is likely pretty reasonable (landscaping is always more $$$ than it seems), but I would not take out a home equity line to do it. I'd rather do it in chunks if you don't have $6k in cash to throw at it.

I think your estimate may even be low. But I wouldn't take out a home equity loan for $6k, and definitely not for landscaping.

We spent about $5-6k on landscaping when we moved in to our home four years ago. Some of that money went to planting full grown bushy palm trees for immediate privacy, adding landscape lighting, adding sprinklers in the patio to accomodate planters without us having to water them. About $1,200 was just on the ceramic planters.

I don't think the estimate is outrageous. I wouldn't take a loan to do it.

We live in a low cost area. My aunt spent $25k on 6 large wooden flower beds separated with pea gravel, a concrete patio, water fountain, some plants, and large grassy area. Here is a photo of half of her backyard focusing on the more expensive landscaping parts (3-4 years after it was done, so plants are all now huge).

It sounds like a reasonable estimate, but I wouldn't pay that for landscaping. I'd opt to do a much cheaper DIY version of it somehow and only hire out what I absolutely could not do myself.

@Alba4: Yep, same for us! And we got the discounted price too. I was stunned.

I totally get what you're saying about just wanting to get it done so you can enjoy it! We have done tons of DIY stuff on our home since we bought it two years ago and are now also starting to work more on our pitiful lawn and I am also just ready to hire it out.

I get why everyone is saying they wouldn't take out a loan to do it but I also fully understand why it's worth paying a bit of interest to do it now. I think we're going to do the same thing, but actually take out a private home improvement loan to do a more expensive project because we don't have enough equity. Then we will refinance because that should get our house value up enough to have 20% equity. The refinancing will help us pay off the loan quicker. Anyway, just my two cents that the loan isn't the craziest idea in the world..

I definitely wouldn't finance that and your estimates may be low. If you plan on this being your forever home, it may be worth it to break it up over the next couple of years. I personally would get the back graded this year and maybe put some seed down, but since you had your trees trimmed last year and are going to take one down, you might want to wait and assess the shade situation later.

We spent about $25k on our yard last year, but it needed a lot of professional attention. We had 15 mature 30+ ft trees taken down, a fence installed with gates for our 1 acre backyard and 20 new 7-8 ft privacy trees planted to block the view of our house from a street. None of this we could have done ourselves so I was okay with paying it. But when you talk about seeding and mulching, I know it's a lot of work but I prefer to buy the equipment and do that myself. We did all that too! And installed a French drain around the house. I feel like gardening, working with grass and mulching are kind of money pits when you talk about hiring a professional because they need to be tended to at least once a year. Better to get in the swing of handling it yourself early on to save more long term.

I'll agree with everyone above - yes that number seems reasonable, even on the low side, but no I wouldn't borrow against my house for the cash to do. I know you want a usable space, so I would do the what I could afford to now with cash to get there - like you could do the lawn now, but defer the perimeter and mulch and plantings until next year. That said, if you have no grass now and need a usuable space asap, you may need to sod right?