For many Americans – myself among them – Memorial Day Weekend marks the start of the summer season. This is the time of year when we start enjoying our outdoor spaces, if we have any. It’s also a time when we may be working on enhancing them, having completed our tax returns. Which upgrades offer the greatest returns on investment? According to real estate platform Zillow, “Functional outdoor space continues to help homes sell for more.” In fact, the firm’s research reports home sale bumps of $10,000 for improving these spaces. Here’s what you might expect, especially if you live in a region with nearly year-round outdoor living potential.
Many Happy Returns
Zillow reached its conclusions by analyzing keywords of more than 2 million homes listed for sale in 2024. “New Zillow research finds outdoor TVs, outdoor showers and outdoor kitchens can help homes sell for as much as 3.1% more than expected,” commented a March 2024 blog post. “That’s the highest sale price premium of all 359 features Zillow analyzed across nearly 1 million home sales in 2023.” The Zillow study specifically highlighted outdoor showers helping homes sell for 2.8% more and outdoor kitchens and bluestone patios boosting resale value by 2.2%.” Those figures may not seem significant, until you factor in sales prices for many of the most competitive markets exceeding $1 million price tags on typical suburban homes. That’s true in my San Diego market. It may be in yours too.
The post also mentioned that some features, especially trends highlighted on TikTok, helped homes sell almost a week faster. “Viral home features that appeal to younger first-time buyers can help a home sell up to six days faster than expected,” the post noted, though it should be pointed out that younger buyers struggle to afford homes and save for down payments. If your home is in a community with many qualified young home shoppers, this is definitely something to keep in mind.
Bottom line, according to Zillow: “Six of the top 10 features that help homes sell for more are outdoor features, signaling that the pandemic-era demand for functional outdoor space remains,” the post continued.
More Outside Living Trends
The popular pro search platform Yelp supports the popularity of outdoor enhancements. In its 2025 Summer Homes & Outdoor Trends Report, the site saw a 376% jump in gardener searches and a massive 875% spike in artificial turf providers. There were also intriguing jumps in homesteading requests. “With food prices climbing, interest in self-sufficiency is surging—planting a nursery (+58%), building a chicken coop (+163%), and searching for live chickens (+424%) are also on the rise,” the report concluded.
Home improvement platform Houzz predicted in November that outdoor cooking will be one of its top 10 home trends for 2025, noting that 90% of outdoor living space renovations include a grill. Notably though, it added, “But we’re seeing homeowners embrace other outdoor cooking methods as well. In addition to traditional grills, homeowners are adding pizza ovens, smokers, ceramic kamado-style barbecues and Argentinian-style gaucho grills that use wood or charcoal.” As Zillow shared in its report, that outdoor kitchen can bring resale returns. But it might now need more than a basic grill to quench home shoppers’ taste for outdoor dining!
Last Words
Zillow suggests highlighting resale-enhancing features in a listing if a home has them, but offers a caution: “Keep in mind that this analysis did not examine the ROI of installing any of these individual features solely for resale. Instead, these features should be viewed as signals about the perceived quality of a home and everything else it has going for it. For example, an outdoor shower could signal that a home is near the beach or has a pool, and that may be what’s ultimately driving up the sale price.”
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