Landscaping Rehab Issues

[Monica Breckenridge]

What are you guys doing for your front yard landscaping? My husband and I seem to have problems every year. We want the house to have nice curb appeal so we put down sod and red mulch. However we have had problems several times with watering the grass. We've had several of our above ground sprinkler with a timer blow out and water goes flowing down the streets. We typically get a call from the neighbors telling us water is going everywhere. Or when somebody goes to mow the lawn, they move the sprinkler and then they don't put it back right and the grass dies. Worse, I've had lawn mower guys leave the sprinkler by the side of the house and water seeps into the foundation and floods the basement and the front yard dies. I've had this happen 2x. It seems like we deal with one idiot after another.

So my question is how do you handle landscaping in the spring and summer? Do you put fake grass down, do you do nothing and put in the MLS that seller will give credit for the yard, do you prep it for grass and put the mulch down and then put the sod down after closing? I'm just curious because we aren't the only investors in town who has this problem and I'm trying to figure out a better system.

[Monica Breckenridge]

Yeah it seems like a never ending problem. We finally do have a great lawn guy and we started him up again this year. But this year alone, we've had two of the sprinkler heads pop and water was spraying everywhere. Who knows how much we've overspent on water. Luckily water didn't get into the house.

I really want my husband to just put underground sprinklers in. But he said the cost would be $1000 per house and he didn't want to do it. It seems to me that would be the best solution.