Curb Appeal Houses and Listings Across the Lower Mainland

Curb Appeal sells a Greater Vancouver home before the front door opens, so separate what is cosmetic from what a freshly finished exterior may be covering.

Read Curb Appeal as Evidence, Not Decoration

A well-maintained exterior usually signals an owner who kept up with everything else, and that is worth noting. Fresh paint applied last month is a different signal. Ask the listing agent when the exterior work was done and by whom, and look for the tells: new paint on the lower siding only, caulking over a gap rather than a repair, or a garden bed built up against the wall where it traps moisture. Photographs on any home for sale are shot on the one clear afternoon of the month, so visit in the rain.

Check the Exterior Your Inspector Will Care About

Walk the perimeter with your inspector and look past the landscaping. Grade should fall away from the foundation, downspouts should discharge well clear of it, and the gap between the ground and the bottom of the cladding should be visible rather than buried. Check the roof edge, the flashing, the soffits and the condition of the windows on the weather side. In British Columbia the exterior is the part of a house that works hardest, and a tidy front garden tells you nothing about the north wall.

Budget What Curb Appeal Costs to Keep

Ask what the presentation requires each year: irrigation, mowing, hedge and tree work, gutter cleaning, and repainting on a cycle. In a strata, request the budget and the depreciation report and check the landscaping and exterior maintenance lines, since condos with strong presentation carry the cost in the monthly fee rather than in your weekends. Then compare the listing against recent sales on the same street, because a well-presented home usually trades at a premium and you want to know how much of that premium you are paying for paint.