Work with Your Neighbours and Boost Home Values

Homebuyers are naturally attracted to areas where the overall impression is one of caring – about clean pavements and parks, neat gardens and well-maintained homes.
    
And as is evident from the growing popularity of residential estates in recent years, many buyers also want to live in a place where they can get to know and trust their neighbours and share a braai or school lifts as well as security initiatives.
   
Consequently, one of the best ways for homeowners – in any area - to protect or add value to their properties is to work with others to create the type of neighbourhood that will attract more buyers, and thus boost home prices.
   
But this obviously needs to be a combined effort. You can’t really expect others to keep their pets under control, for example, if you won’t do something about your dog barking all night or all day while you are at work.
   
Similarly, if weekends are your time to work on your home and you insist on mowing the lawn or using power tools at 7am every Sunday, your neighbours are probably not going to be too cooperative when you ask them to curb the revelry at a late-night pool party or keep their TV turned down. 
     
Mutual consideration is also the key when it comes to the upkeep of homes, gardens and public areas in your community. You may have to be the one to paint your house first, for example, or to organise a drive to clean up a local park, but you shouldn’t hold back. 
    
Generally speaking, if you start showing pride in your home and its surrounds, your neighbours - and their neighbours - will usually follow suit. No-one wants to live in the shabbiest property on the street – or on the area’s worst-looking street.
   
What is more, being a good neighbour inevitably pays off in terms of a better current lifestyle as well as a higher home price when the time comes to sell and move to another attractive neighbourhood.