Planning for a newly built home in Kansas City can be exciting for sure, but it’s also a long and exhausting experience. There are so many options to choose from for so many different areas. And you have to budget for every single one. It’s easy to exceed your budget every time you have to make a decision.
And that’s just looking at the inside choices. Don’t forget that after that new home is built and you have everything you want with all the colors you chose and all of the amenities and extra features you opted for, that you now have a big landscape full of dirt to contend with outside.
After going through that whole process to make the face of your home and its inside touches gleam, you can’t let the outside fall to pieces and remain a mud puddle. But after the process of making so many choices inside and having to think about your budget over and over again, it might be easy to underestimate the landscaping cost for a new home.
But just because landscaping may be the final stage of a new home build, that doesn’t mean it should be an afterthought. This process requires a well-planned, accurate budget. Creating an aesthetically pleasing, well-designed, attractive lawn and landscape, as well as adding hardscape elements, can increase the total value of your new home and its curb appeal. On top of that, a welcoming landscape can make your home feel more inviting and extend your living space outdoors.
Let’s look at the cost to landscape a new home in Kansas City and how you can best prepare for these prices and to get the landscape you want.
How Much is Landscaping For a New Home?
You might be dreaming up a custom patio space with walkways and nice landscaping to create privacy and cozy nooks in your Kansas City home landscape.
But you might not know how much this space could cost you to create. Figuring out how much this landscape you’re envisioning might cost can be challenging. Just like the home itself, you have to think about numerous elements – all of which have cost ranges to consider.
Here are some thoughts to consider when thinking about the landscaping cost for a new home.
What Is the Best Strategy to Determine Landscaping Costs for a New Home?
New home builds have a tendency to go over budget. This can make planning the cost to landscape a new home in Kansas City tough to figure out.
The first step in setting your budget is to invest in a comprehensive master plan. This plan should include everything you want to put into your outdoor living areas. That way, you can make educated purchasing decisions based on your long term vision. This prevents new homeowners from spending money on things that don’t tie into the ultimate plan and have to be torn out or redone when they’re ready for the next phase.
Once you have your master plan set, phasing can be a common way to combat skyrocketing home build costs. Your professional landscape designer can help you determine your priorities and set budgets based on your needs.
If you went over your budget to build the home, you can also try and still meet your landscape goals by trimming your budget. You can do this by simplifying your material or finish choices for outdoor areas, opting for smaller plants, or phasing in landscape lighting at a later date.
What Type of Investment Should New Homeowners Plan For a New Landscape?
Your landscaping cost for a new home will be largely dependent upon the project scope.
The scope of your outdoor living plan will include the size of your property, style of amenities you choose, and ideal plans for spaces.
Check out our real-life Kansas City case studies with investment levels here: https://www.highprairieoutdoors.com/projects/
What order makes sense for prioritizing?
To tackle the most important elements first, start with structural elements, such as patios, driveways, and retaining walls.
Next, focus on privacy and any required planting needed for occupancy permits.
Finally, add additional landscaping, enhancements, lighting, and sound.
This order ensures you get the major elements in first without acquiring extra costs for rework or renovation.
Budgets continually evolve with time. It’s often best to look at your projected costs and add roughly 20 percent to that to ensure you have everything covered. We’ve heard stories of new home builds going over budget by hundreds of thousands of dollars. That can make budgeting a very stressful situation.
What Should a Landscape Budget Include?
To ensure you cover everything involved in landscaping costs for a new home, remember to include some of these key elements:
- Grading and fine grading
- Additional soil
- Burying drainage spouts away from foundations. (Builders don’t include this)
- Irrigation
- Planting
- Patios, walks, and drives
- Design and project management allowances
- Any other desired scope
What Do Homeowners Typically Forget In Their Landscape Budgets?
Sometimes as you prepare your budget covering the cost to landscape a new home in Kansas City, there are things you forget. And these are the things that can escalate your prepared pricing plans beyond where you’d like to be.
Think about these items as important options to consider to give yourself more options later and ensure you remain within your budget:
- Add access sleeves under your sidewalks, driveways, and patios to allow the option of adding irrigation, lighting, and drainage later.
- Include enough height difference on your concrete stoops to allow for the addition of stone overlays in the future without having to tear up the existing stoop.
- Budget for additional amended soil since most new home builds don’t bring in quality soil after building the home.
- Add electrical outlets on roof eaves in case you want to add holiday lighting later.
- Consider future fire features and gas line access locations.
To save money on your landscape installation, having a master plan in place including what you want in the future could ensure you’re spending the least amount of money to get the final results you’re after.
Landscape Budget Tips & Tricks
How much is landscaping for a new home? When it comes to answering this question, you could find yourself wanting everything but not having the budget to meet all your desires.
In addition to the valuable landscaping tips below, check out our free landscape and outdoor living budgeting guide: https://online.flippingbook.com/view/591449947/
Prioritize Your Needs
To list more precise landscaping costs for a new home, you want to determine how you like to spend your time in your landscape.
Do you plan to cook and eat outside? Do you want to be outside no matter if it’s raining or the sun is shining? Will you want to enjoy your backyard after the sun goes down and during chilly evenings as well as during hot days?
The answers to all of these questions can determine what types of areas you will want to have in your space and the amenities they might require – whether it’s a pergola or pavilion, an outdoor kitchen, landscape lighting, or a fireplace.
Don’t Forget About Permits
In different Kansas City areas, you’ll find some landscape projects require permits, and some of them could add to your landscaping costs.
Your landscape professional should alert you to these and let you know the time concerns or answer any of your questions. High Prairie’s landscape experts are used to this process and can keep you informed, so you don’t have to stress about it. Working with a landscape professional who communicates with you about permits can reduce the anxiety around surprise budget issues that can crop up.
Let Us Help You Take the Guesswork Out of Landscaping Costs for New Home
Hopefully these tips can help give you a better idea of what research is necessary to more accurately determine the cost to landscape a new home in Kansas City.
When you’re envisioning your space, you want to dream about that outdoor kitchen with a gourmet grill or that exquisite patio with a pergola surrounded by lush, privacy plants.
As you’re thinking about your future landscape, you don’t want to be disappointed when you realize you left out a big chunk of the costs involved in making that space a reality.
Understanding the full extent of residential landscape design and installation costs can certainly be challenging. Working with a landscape design-build company that can help walk you through it, giving you time to share your priorities and listening to your vision, as well as helping put all the pieces together, is what can make the budgeting process easier.
If you want to get a better picture of what your dream landscape will cost, give High Prairie Outdoors a call. We can talk to you about your needs and wants and show you design and material options so you can gain a clearer picture of what your landscape budget should be.
Ready to see how High Prairie can transform your Kansas City home landscape with our unique and proven landscape design-build process? We’d love to share our design and installation expertise with you. Get started today with a free consultation. Together, we can prepare a design that you will love and your neighbors will envy.
