From Marketwatch

If you’re looking to upgrade your backyard this spring with an eye toward putting your house on the market, Millennial house hunters might have an unusual request.

“They’ll ask, ‘Where’s your backyard vegetable garden?’” says Mary Hutchison, a real-estate agent with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate in Kansas City, Missouri.

While homeowners take advantage of good weather in springtime to add such backyard upgrades as patios or pools, Hutchison says Millennial homeowners and buyers are going in a different direction. “They’re making their own pizza outdoors with vegetables they grow in their garden,” she says.

About 32 percent of Millennials plan to buy homes over the next two years, compared with 25 percent a year ago, according to the American Express spending and saving tracker, which surveyed 1,800 adults in February 2016.

Other items popular with Millennials include smart doorbells with cameras and electronic exterior locks that can be accessed only with a code and remotely locked and unlocked via Smartphone, according to Sabine Schoenberg, a real-estate agent and luxury builder in Greenwich, Connecticut.

It’s not just the 23- to 34-year-old generation that’s upgrading backyards and exteriors this spring; according to Houzz.com, an online database for residential design, 75 percent of homeowners who are planning outdoor projects in 2016 will start in the backyard.

“Nearly half of outdoor renovators spend six or more hours a week in their yards, motivating them to invest in major features that transform the outdoors into additional living spaces,” says Nino Sitchinava, principal economist at Houzz, based in Palo Alto, California. “Hardy plants, LED or solar lighting and hardscapes in place of lawns are some of the popular low-maintenance choices. Some homeowners are installing motion-sensitive lighting and precipitation-sensitive irrigation to minimize routine upkeep.”

Hutchison says Millennials are particularly eco-conscious when it comes to landscaping and outdoor improvements, adding rain barrels to trap storm water, planting only native species and grasses, and looking for ways to reduce watering needs. “Millennials don’t want a lot of work to do when it comes to (maintenance),” she says.

Hutchison says bricked-in grills are popular and add value at resale time, as well as defined patio space with stonewalls or wood storage boxes for tools. “You want a defined area with benches where people can sit on the perimeter,” she says.

Backyards aren’t solely for spring and summer. Building a stone fire pit can cost you less than $1,000. “[It’s] not only something that you can enjoy well into the colder months, but it will increase the utility of your outdoor living space to a prospective buyer,” she adds.

Stone fire pit from Hearth Products Controls.

Overall, about three-quarters of U.S. homeowners plan to do a home-improvement project this year, according to the American Express survey. Americans plan to spend more this year, as well: $5,100, on average, up from $4,100 in 2015, the survey found.

Of those homeowners making improvements, one-quarter said they would make landscaping improvements, while about 12 percent said they would be building or improving a deck or patio, and seven percent would include an outdoor kitchen or enclosed barbecue grill, according to the survey.

Americans will likely spend a record $350 billion on home improvements by 2017, up from $325 billion in 2015, according to the American Institute of Architects.

Earlier this year, Remodeling magazine noted that outdoor projects had a greater-than-average recoupment ratio when a home is sold, as compared with other remodeling projects. For example, while the national cost-to-value average for both inside and outside projects was about a 64 percent recoupment net (meaning the project returned 64 cents when the house was sold for every dollar spent), adding, for example, stone-veneer siding ($7,500 average cost) recouped 93 percent upon resale, while a wood deck (average cost $10,500) recouped 75 percent, according to the magazine.

‑ Daniel Goldstein