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How Do Trees Affect Your Property Value?

trees

Sometimes when we have money available to invest in our property, we are not sure or stuck on which areas of the house we should prioritize for investment in order to raise the property’s value. Trees are one investment many people tend to overlook. They can either add to your property value or reduce its value.

In this guide, we will look at arguably the most overlooked subject when it comes to adding value to your home and preventing trees from causing problems that may reduce the value of your home.

Topics we will touch on include:

  • Checking that your trees are healthy
  • Challenges homeowners have with neighbours and trees on boundaries
  • Avoiding possible structural damage caused by tree roots
  • How trees can block sunlight to key areas in your garden

When it comes to adding value to your property, trees can really make a difference and the investment is not as much as other more obvious home investment opportunities such as putting in new windows or refitting your kitchen. We will look at the choices you have and refer you to some guides and stories of people that have managed to add a reasonable amount of value to their property simply by hiring an arborist.

By the time you have finished reading this article, you should be able to understand how you can take advantage of using a tree service provider so when you come to sell the house the return on investment will be well worth your while.

1. Check Your Trees Are Healthy

Tree health is very important because if you don’t notice a tree is dying, then an appraiser coming to value your home most likely will. Tree removal will go down as work that needs doing on the house. In this case, a dying tree will need removing and as such the maximum cost of removal will be taken into consideration. That cost will be subtracted from the value of your home.

Another point worth making here is that you should have a qualified tree surgeon come into your home and certify that all your trees are in good health. It is additional paperwork that shows an expert arborist has assessed the trees in your garden and confirms they are in good health.

A healthy tree could be worth up to $10,000, so it worth getting a tree surgeon to come in and appraise your trees in your garden.

Take a look at this blog explaining how trees increase property value.

2. Challenges homeowners have with neighbours and trees on boundaries

Some people may have an issue with your tree growing into their garden – especially if the tree often sheds its dead leaves. There are ways to solve this issue. You can continuously cut/prune the tree yourself or hire an arborist to prune the true in such a way that the branches do not stretch into your neighbour’s garden.

Another big challenge is if you have a tree that is spreading its roots into your neighbour’s garden. Worst still the roots could be causing structural damage to your neighbour’s wall, driveway, or even their house. We will go into the subject of tree roots and structural damage in the next section.

Lastly, if your tree grows to high or thick, you may receive complaints from your neighbours because the tree could be blocking their sunlight. We will also look deeper into this issue in a later section.

You can read more about neighbours and overhanging branches here.

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3. Avoiding possible structural damage caused by tree roots

One of the issues with trees is the unseen structural damage they can cause says Nicolas Ford of Canopy Trees. The damage could be to the property foundation, plumbing works, garden paths as well as other garden infrastructure. For this reason, you should consider seeking the advice of an arborist in order to make sure your trees have not caused any damage you may not know about.

If you come to sell the house in the future and there are trees near to the building, you can be sure that someone is going to ask to have the roots checked to make sure that they have not caused any damage. Should the inspector find that there has been damage caused or that there is potential for a tree to cause damage, this can severely reduce the market value of your property.

The reason trees can have a negative effect on your property value is down to the cost of tree removal, disposal, and the landscaping in the area where the tree was removed.

4. How trees can block sunlight to key areas in your garden

There are both positives and negatives to trees blocking sunlight in your garden. On the positive side you can plant the right type of trees to give certain areas of your garden shade on hot sunny days. People that plant trees with this strategy in mind do so usually because they have quite an open garden with not much to get in the way of the sun.

In addition to this, there could be windows in your house that the sun shines through and makes some rooms in the house unbearably hot. The only option is usually to put a blind or curtains there, but if the room only has this one window, then it will always remain dark. A strategically places tree will allow you to let the light in but block the hot rays from the sun overheating the room.

Over to the negative points and trees can also be a burden on the amount of sunlight coming into your garden. Some of the main issues you will come across with trees is disputes and complaints from neighbours about trees blocking sunlight and reducing the value of their home because your trees are negatively affecting their garden light.

If your house is the one having its sunlight blocked by your neighbour’s tree, then check out this blog here about neighbour’s tree blocking sunlight.

Where Do You Begin?

It is always hard to know where to begin when it comes to investing in trees. This is understandable and you are not alone because not many people are qualified when it comes to how trees grow or where to properly plant trees.

The best place to begin your research is online. As you can see from this guide, there are plenty of links to information provided by professionals on their websites to help you understand more about what it is you are hoping to achieve by investing money in your house.

Look for companies that offer ‘free no obligation quotes and design plans’. This will give you the opportunity to ask for 2 or 3 quotes so you can get an idea of the best price you can get the job done for. Make sure you use arborist companies that have good feedback. Even better than this, if you have friends that have had similar work done to their property, then go and take a look at the workmanship first-hand for yourself.