You’re shopping for a second home and will use it part of the year or perhaps move into it full time when you retire. Since you will not be there full time, how much effort should you put into the second home Retaining Walls? The answer depends on the current state of the landscaping and whether you intend to live in it part time or rent it out.
For instance, the home may be a foreclosure or bank owned with neglected landscaping. Or it may be fully landscaped in good shape and you will need to continue the maintenance. It may have been a rental with minimal landscape improvements.
Regardless of the type of property it was, you need to assess the current state of the landscaping. It could be anywhere from a landscape that was disregarded, to a high end outdoor living environment where the owners valued professional landscaping and invested in a custom design and installation.
These types of properties are homes that may have never been landscaped except for a few trees and shrubs and gravel cover. They are homes where the owners did not value upgrading the landscaping by installing improvements such as a patio, nice fencing, or other elements. There may be a lot of native vegetation left in its natural state.
To some degree, these properties are like a clean slate because there isn’t much that you need to rip out and redo the way you want it or too correct mistakes in terms of taste or poor quality work. These properties include foreclosures, rentals and older properties.
Your new home may be equipped with a concrete driveway, block walls, brick patios, a barbeque island and would appear that it was installed as a complete landscape project at one point. It may have been installed by professional landscapers, or some of the improvements could have been homeowner built.
When a landscape needs a makeover or renovation, it’s often because it doesn’t work for the new owner. It may need repairs, it may lack certain elements, it may not have enough patio space, the front may lack any curb appeal, the barbeque island was placed in an unacceptable location and so forth.
