Dominic Parravani, Managing Director of Durrants, looks at a key feature home-buyers are adding to their wish lists this year.
 
Many of those who saw the Chelsea Flower Show featured on TV recently, or better still attended the annual event in person, would have been struck by the more natural turn garden designers have taken this year. Not only that but considerable time and skill were given to smaller multi-use plots and even balconies – in some cases deep enough only for a tiny chair. The creativity was as spectacular as it was beautiful.
 
While there was the usual heavy lifting of giant boulders for rushing mountain streams and huge established trees for shade and drama in the show gardens, attention by the designers was also given to intimate city and even industrial landscapes. Weeds, for once, were encouraged.
 
Garden designers understand public taste only too well, and so do estate agents. Since the start of the pandemic, the importance of outdoor space has been rising in the minds of home buyers, whether it is for the horticulturally minded or for those who demand a deck with room for eating, relaxing and barbecuing. Outdoor entertaining in our warming climate is very much in.
 
There was a time years ago when a good kitchen would sell a house. Then it was well-planned kitchens and bathrooms. More recently it has been open plan ground floor living. But now outdoor spaces are very much the thing. A property’s exterior has become almost as important as its interior. It doesn’t matter how small or large the area is as long as the most has been made of it.
 
So if you are getting your property ready to sell you should of course focus on the interior, but don’t forget the outside relaxing area. Our advice is to channel your inner Monty Don and make the most of your garden, terrace or balcony. With the increasing importance of outside space to buyers, not doing so could lose you a gold medal of a deal.