Fix and Flip Curb Appeal Tips That Help Homes Sell Faster | Steve Griggs

Steve (00:00)
But like don’t skimp on the landscaping.

I’ve seen too many projects, I blew all my budget inside and by the time I get outside there’s nothing left. Oh, I have great sheetrock inside. Nobody cares about the sheetrock and the studs. They want to see the finishes.

Cody Crabb (00:09)
Yeah.

Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m Cody Crabb with Investor Fuel. And today we have with us Steve Griggs, founder of Steve Griggs design out of New York. Steve has over 40 years of experience in the industry. He specializes in high end outdoor living spaces, everything from luxury landscapes and custom pools to outdoor kitchens and rooftop retreats. Today we’re going to talk about what it takes to build and scale a premium design business, especially in a market like New York.

I’m really excited to hear what you have to say, because I feel like you’ve built some really cool stuff in your time, and I would love to hear about some of it. Thanks for joining us today.

Steve (02:20)
All right, Cody, looking forward to it.

Cody Crabb (02:22)
Steve Griggs So so just to get started here, ⁓ did you ⁓ how did you start into the like? How did you get into this space in the first place? Because your intro to this space kind of has me interested because it’s like it seems pretty specific that you’re getting into a particular You know clientele and type of job and stuff. Did that happen all at once? Was that a decision you made or you just kind of do it by accident?

Steve (02:44)
No, no, no.

It kind of just evolved over the last 40 years, right? So nobody’s going to trust you with a $300,000 backyard if you’re green behind the ears. You can’t fake the funk, right? You have to know what you’re talking about. You can’t just wing it. So they have to know, like, and trust you. So you have to kind of know what you’re talking about. have to, you know, the proof is in the pudding, right? So no, it didn’t start out like that. It started with very basic. to college for landscaping, got my landscape architecture degree, worked for

⁓ high-end pool builder ⁓ and I saw that I saw that people would actually spend four or five hundred thousand dollars on a backyard. That’s my first taste of that type of it because I grew up you know a regular you know blue-collar family so that was eye-opening.

Cody Crabb (03:30)
Yeah.

Yeah, you’re like, I didn’t even know that someone could spend that much money on it.

Steve (03:36)
Yeah, and they,

you know, it’s just amazing how when people have that kind of wealth, they just write a check like I’m paying my phone bill, you know. I guess it’s all relative, right? It’s all relative.

Cody Crabb (03:44)
Yeah, like no big deal.

Yeah, if you think about like a percentage of their income, it really changes it, No, but that’s interesting. So ⁓ I guess like, me an idea of, just so I can kind of imagine something in my head, what are some of the cooler projects that you’ve been able to be a part of that would kind of catch someone’s eye as like an interesting thing?

Steve (03:49)
Yeah, so.

I mean some of the higher end projects, you know, you have to sign non-disclosure agreements with some of the athletes and celebrity types, but typically…

Cody Crabb (04:16)
Sure. See,

even just that, that’s pretty cool that you can even say that right there.

Steve (04:20)
Yeah, yeah, so I mean

it took a long time to get there but you know the typical projects you know putting swimming pools on top of a mountain and putting in a pool up on top of a rooftop and you know they just trying to be there for the client and trying to you know satisfy their needs. Basically you try to how can I help them right? So you know how can I help them? How are you going to use the space?

Cody Crabb (04:43)
Yeah.

Steve (04:47)
you know, is it for family entertainment? So you kind of go through a series of questions and you try to come up with the best solution, right? That’s my job.

Cody Crabb (04:54)
Yeah.

So how does it differ kind of serving this higher end clientele versus just kind of your basic like, you know, let’s spruce things up kind of middle class. Obviously it’s very, I’m assuming it’s very, very different in a lot of ways, but I’m just like what is it like working with the different people?

Steve (06:02)
you know, since this is the real estate investor podcast, you know, people will get into that later, like, you know, why landscape is important to a house. And if you’re fixing and flipping, it should have been part of it since COVID and before then everybody’s living outside now. Right. So it’s, you know, everybody wants to be outside. I forgot the question. You had a question.

Cody Crabb (06:22)
No, no, the question was like what’s it like what’s the What’s the difference like I’m curious like yeah

Steve (06:25)
what’s it like? It’s very different. It’s very different. It’s very different.

Because people that hire me now, they’re very busy. They don’t want to put up with the BS. They want a fair price. And they want you to tell them straight up. Sometimes a lot of these people are not used to hearing no. They’re used to being around yes people all the time. So I try to bring them that New York flair in time to tell them straight up. No, this is not possible. That’s possible.

and they just like to be treated fairly and honest and they want to hire a guy that can get the job done with no headaches. That is the big, because they’re busy, right? So they’re, really value their time. So they’re not going to micromanage you. They’re not going to, you know, check on you because I’ve learned that they’re very busy and that their time is way more valuable doing what they have to do for their career and their business than babysitting a bunch of subcontractors.

Cody Crabb (07:04)
Sure, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that makes it yeah

Steve (07:21)
So that’s how this kind of evolved.

So that’s kind of like, so I would be the go-to guy to make that happen.

Cody Crabb (07:27)
Yeah, that’s really cool. That’s really true though, too. The main thing is just handle it and don’t be too expensive. If you’re not taking advantage of the fact that they’ve got some money, there’s gotta be a lot of, yeah.

Steve (07:38)
No, treat everybody fair. And they’re

very frugal. You’d be surprised. You’d think, ⁓ they just have money, but they got money because they’re frugal. And they like value, like anybody else, and they like good deals. And they can spot quality. They don’t mind paying for quality. They don’t mind paying a premium price as as it’s quality in the last. They’re very smart. They’re very smart.

Cody Crabb (07:49)
Sure.

Okay, so from a real estate investor perspective, ⁓ a lot of people look at stuff like landscaping and they think anything past pretty basic, like just get some plants, get some nice things on the outside so it doesn’t look bad. Like anything past that is luxury. ⁓ But I think, I’m sensing that you do not agree with that. I’d love to hear your perspective on that, from an investor perspective.

Steve (08:24)
Do not, do not totally,

I find that, I see the running, we refer to it as the builder’s landscape, right? So the builder’s landscape will build this beautiful $2 million home and then he puts a bunch of Home Depot shrubs in the front, right? So when you’re selling real estate, I don’t know, people, before they go into the house and look at it, everybody’s doing a drive-by, they’re all doing a drive-by, they’re checking out, it’s curb appeal, right? So you wanna have that lawn.

Cody Crabb (08:49)
True.

Steve (08:52)
you know, jacked up with fertilizers, you know, so it’s all green and you want to have the bushes trimmed and you want to frame the house with some taller trees on the corners, right? That’s just a curb appeal. And then in the backyard, everybody wants a baller backyard. don’t, don’t, you know, when that backyard is like popping with a fire pit, outdoor kitchen, it doesn’t even have to have a swimming pool, but it has to look like it’s put together.

It can’t just be like a mishmash. So when I design a project, I look at the entire property and how the house fits on that land. And you basically want to feel like the land was already, the house was already there and the land just kind of like encompasses it. You know what saying? You don’t want to feel like you just plopped the house in the middle of a subdivision.

Cody Crabb (09:17)
Yeah.

I see.

Yeah, well and that’s, I mean that’s, ⁓ I guess you have the freedom to do that when you’ve kind of got a bigger budget and you’re able to kind of make some, it’s not about budget?

Steve (09:43)
No, you don’t need, no, just be very creative.

No, like if they’re digging a house and they have a bunch of extra fill from the foundation, don’t get rid of it. We may want to use it to sculpt the land and create elevations. You know what saying? There’s all different ways to do it. It’s the proper placement of the material is really the key. Anybody could just go out and get a bunch of plants and stick them in. It’s kind of how you organize them. There’s got to be flow and symmetry. It all has to kind of like feel very like put together.

I try to explain this thing like if you wear a suit, if you’re wearing a good brand new suit and you’re wearing the same old shoes, it doesn’t go together, right? So everything has to kind of flow. And you don’t have spend a lot of money, it just has to work.

Cody Crabb (10:20)
Yeah. Yeah.

See now that has me interested because you’re working with these high-end clients yet you’re saying it’s not even about the money necessarily it’s about the mindset of how you’re designing it and things like that. Talk more about that.

Steve (11:10)
Absolutely,

anybody can throw a bunch of money at it, right? So it’s really picking the proper material, you know, the right type of paver, the stone or whatever, coupled with the lighting and the proper plant selection. When are the flowers gonna bloom? When does this bloom? How is this gonna block my neighbor? You know, it all kind of ties in. It’s all kind of intertwined.

Cody Crabb (11:33)
Hmm. Yeah,

so I mean, it sounds like that’s the reason that there are people like you that know what they’re talking about. But speaking as like a real estate investor, let’s say someone’s doing a fix and flip. They’re kind of fixing up a yard in a residential neighborhood. What advice would you give them to kind of like top couple of things that you’d say that make that make the biggest difference? Yeah, something like that, where they’re just kind of fixing it up, you know.

Steve (11:50)
Fix and flip, fix and flip, I’m gonna

give you the down and dirty, like quick like, thousand bucks, let’s call it a thousand bucks, right? Let’s make sure that the front lawn is green. don’t care if it’s green, you gotta get a bag of seed, you gotta get a bag of high nitrogen fertilizer, get a spreader.

Cody Crabb (11:56)
All right, let’s do it.

Okay, cool.

Steve (12:13)
Put the lawn on, soak it good, two weeks before the showing and that stuff will pop green. People love green grass. Make sure it’s cut right. Get yourself some nice ornamental flowers, even from Home Depot. Make the color look great up front. Not a mishmash. You wanna group things in groupings. Things look better when they’re grouped. 10 of one color, 10 of another color. Don’t just go green, rather blue, red. It’s very confusing for the eye.

Then get yourself a couple of nice outdoor planters. Go to the Home Depot section. They sell the pots, the fiberglass pots for $29. Get yourself some hanging flower baskets. Cut the hangers off of it. Stick the whole thing in there so it’s cascading over. I mean, all little things like that. And get some mulch, some fresh root mulch, and put it in the flower beds. People like that. Clean and neat. They like it clean and neat. Thousand bucks. just spent under a thousand. We just did it for under thousand bucks.

Cody Crabb (13:04)
Yeah, I was just gonna say, yeah, what you’re describing, yeah.

And that’s like an afternoon of work, really. Like, I mean, it’s not a whole lot of stuff you’re talking about here, and it can make it, so that’s what I’d also like to ask you, sure, sure.

Steve (13:18)
That’s for the lower, that’s for the fix and flip guys that are out there, know,

they’re doing it themselves, they bought a house and they’re working and they’re doing it all, you know, absolutely.

Cody Crabb (13:24)
Yeah. So

in that case, ⁓ what kind of difference can that make financially? What kind of return do you get on that investment, do think?

Steve (13:35)
I’d write something that could be as high as 20%. Yeah, 20%. And then you’ll sell the house quicker. Yeah, anything, yeah, about 20 % landscaping.

Cody Crabb (13:39)
Wow, really?

Well you get more, I feel

like it’s almost like a billboard. It catches more people’s eyes just because it looks particularly nice.

Steve (13:51)
And don’t like

use like if you have like a 35 foot house, let’s say right like don’t buy $3 flowers that look out of scale, right? So that’s the almost look like it’s purposely there and it’s all part of the scale Obviously, you’re not gonna plant them full-grown, but you want to make it look like it’s you know, a little established. Yeah

Cody Crabb (14:09)
intentional yeah

yeah well so so that’s a that’s a really good that’s a yeah lighting give us the lighting because that’s something i don’t really know much about at all

Steve (14:15)
and lighting, and lighting, landscape lighting.

Super easy now. It’s low voltage LED You can YouTube it. You don’t have to be a licensed electrician There’s a transformer plugs into an outlet has a timer on it You run the wires bury the wires the landscape lighting looks the best You want to make sure you have up lighting on the trees? What you know? Washing the house a little bit because people even if it’s winter gets dark early They’re looking at houses even at night driving by you know

Cody Crabb (14:45)
Yeah, well

and also again, what would catch people’s attention better than like a well-lit outdoor section of it, you Yeah, the neighbors probably would not appreciate that, but.

Steve (14:51)
Well lit, not like Yankee Stadium lip, it’s soft lighting. No, very

soft lighting, use like 2700 watt lumens, it’s very like a warm light, not the white light, it’s very warm.

Cody Crabb (15:45)
So far this has been awesome because I love when we get really specific like this. Someone is gonna hear this and go, oh, okay, and it’s gonna make a huge difference for them. So I appreciate that.

Steve (15:50)
Yeah.

little

lighting and some nice simple landscaping goes a long way. Make sure you have water. Small irrigation system helps because if you plant the stuff and you don’t water it’s gonna die. But you know, I’m talking about you know…

Cody Crabb (16:10)
Yeah, I’m just hearing

some ways I can make my mom really happy with her yard without too much work. So that also sounds like a good little use of time there. So okay, another question that I had for you was, ⁓ let’s say this is not like a fix and flip situation. Let’s say kind of we’re a level above that. maybe we’re starting from scratch. Maybe we’re starting ⁓ at a bigger multifamily property or something like that. ⁓ What’s the level above that? You gave us a thousand dollar version. Like what’s…

Steve (16:14)
There you go.

Sure.

Cody Crabb (16:37)
What comes next in the kind of hierarchy of what makes the biggest difference? Let’s say like multi-family or single-family. I would love to hear like, what do you think makes the biggest difference is what I was trying to get to.

Steve (16:44)
I mean…

outdoor living spaces, right? Like people love to entertain outside and they love privacy. if it’s depending how the units are set up, you definitely want to have some sort of barrier. Everybody wants to feel secure and private, right? And you can achieve that through the right plans, right? If you have a neighbor that’s, if you’re trying to do a fix and flipping, your house is here and the neighbor’s right there, that’s going to decrease the value of the home. Absolutely. You can buy 24 trees if you had to, right?

Cody Crabb (17:06)
Hmm.

Steve (17:18)
to block out the neighbor. can get a six foot high fence. You want to create the… So you think about it as like creating an outdoor room, right? Like your living room, your dining room, your kitchen. I tell the story a lot to people visualize. When you go outside, you want to have the floors could be grass or a patio. The walls can be a fence. The lighting is like your lighting. You want to have like airy. You want to have like a dining area, a cooking area and a hanging out area. So everybody, you’re basically just extending the outside. Fire pits, huge.

Cody Crabb (17:18)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, all this sounds like it makes so much sense when you say it, because it’s like, well, yeah, it’s part of your house. Treat it like it’s part of your house, like you’re going to use it. Who needs big stretches of lawn? You know what I mean? Yeah, if you can use it for something, obviously that would be.

Steve (17:55)
Yeah.

Nobody, it’s just more to maintain. Like, it’s just like…

Cody Crabb (18:07)
Obviously that would be better. So this is really great so far. ⁓ I really appreciate you giving us all these tips here. The outdoor rooms thing is like particularly, I’m going to remember that for sure. So yeah.

Steve (18:18)
Just think of it as an outdoor room and you want to

make it very cozy. mean, if you’re doing a fix and flip, you can just buy a regular propane fire pit, right? You don’t need to run gas lines. They’re like 300 bucks. This house has a fire pit. You know what saying? People don’t really know that. An outdoor kitchen, you can buy relatively inexpensive. Just make them feel like it’s warm.

Cody Crabb (18:28)
That’s true, you could just get him right off the shelf now, huh?

Yeah.

Well, and even if you do know, even

if you do know that it’s kind of off the shelf, I could totally imagine like my wife coming to me and saying, they even have a fire pit. Like it’s a feature and it’s just not even that expensive to do that. Yeah. So.

Steve (18:47)
That’s what I’m saying.

No, and you can

buy them well a few hundred bucks you can get one

Cody Crabb (18:56)
Yeah.

Okay, so let’s say we’re doing single family, right? ⁓ If someone is doing a project like this, what’s the first like one or two, I mean, it sounds like a fire pit’s pretty good bet as far as like how expensive it is versus how flashy it looks, but what are the first like one or two rooms or items that you can add that are like, they look the flashiest? Yeah, outside.

Steve (19:15)
outside.

outdoor kitchens are huge popular outdoor kitchens nice landscape lighting is used a nice paver patio is beautiful too not concrete paver patio but it has to be designed you don’t want to just square it off it has to all go with the patio the landscaping it’s nice to have a little water feature even if the water feature is just like those bowls you buy and they plug it in and they girdle over water fire and water man people love that it’s very soothing and you want to plant the right plants you want to plant some grasses and some

Cody Crabb (19:40)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s true. Yeah, well.

Steve (19:49)
fragrant flowers and you know you just have to it just has to all get has to be organized chaos almost right you yeah intentional when you go outside you see a night space it just feels different

Cody Crabb (19:56)
Yeah, yeah, intentional and yeah.

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean, because it’s hard for me to put my finger on exactly what it is, but it’s just like, yeah, know, yeah, it feels just very careful. ⁓ So because not everybody’s a designer, ⁓ a lot of us are gonna hear, like, you’re saying stuff like, it just needs to feel right, you know? Tell us about, like, what is the role of a designer like yourself in a situation like this? Do you just?

Steve (20:09)
You know what it is. Yeah, you know.

Cody Crabb (20:27)
have a natural sense of where things should go and how the flow should work? Or are there actual rules that come into play?

Steve (20:33)
There’s

rules, there’s rules, there’s too many to teach here, but it’s really like, you now like, think like a couple years ago, everybody would just come out with the Pinterest, the homeowner would come out and just start scrolling through the Pinterest. Now they’re coming out with the Pinterest and now the AI, right?

Cody Crabb (20:36)
Yeah, sure, of course, yeah.

Yeah.

that must be extra bad, because that can do stuff that is impossible.

Steve (20:52)
No,

it’s fine, but the thing about the AI is, yeah, it gives you ideas, but it can’t really… It doesn’t show you how to execute it, what the cost is and what the sequence is. That’s a whole other… They show you a pretty picture, but it’s $50,000 for a little thing. It has to go with the designer. The designer has to know what things cost. Because anybody can just make creative pictures all day and the traffic flow and how the walkway flows and…

Cody Crabb (21:03)
Yeah. I see what you mean.

Steve (21:21)
Yeah, it’s good for like quick, you know, ⁓ yeah, like a quick mock-up. helps a little bit. We use that as well. But it’s really how the whole space fits and how the client is going to use the space. So you ask a lot of questions.

Cody Crabb (21:23)
Like a mock-up or something, yeah.

Gotcha.

Yeah, yeah, sounds like it. ⁓ Just a couple more questions as we’re winding down here. ⁓ So let’s say someone wants to do something like this with a property they own or with their own property or they want to invest and make something cooler than it used to be. Where can they find someone like you? Let’s say it’s not you and they aren’t where you are. Where should they look for someone like you?

Steve (21:55)
Google, don’t know, whatever else, know, referrals, Google, look at their website, see if you’ve, see if it flows good and you know, ⁓ look at some projects or something but is that kind of like, I don’t know, like they can find them anywhere. But you really want to have a good design, like the design is everything. Because the design, because the design, it’s 5,000 bucks for a big design or whatever, maybe it could be 25,000.

Cody Crabb (22:01)
Ask around, yeah.

Yeah

Yeah, it sounds like that’s, mean.

Steve (22:25)
The design is the playbook to get you to that goal you want. a good design does it. You can even phase it in, you know? Because if I have $10,000 to spend but the job’s 50, I want to spend 10 this year, the rest next year. You can design it in such a way that it’s easy to phase in. You put the conduit under the ground so you’re not doing things twice. A good design will save you triple the amount of that you spent just in mistakes.

Cody Crabb (22:45)
Yeah.

Yeah, that sounds right because… Like, it might turn out okay, but you might have to start over. yeah.

Steve (22:53)
It’s like building a house without a blueprint.

Yeah, you don’t

wanna do expensive mistakes.

Cody Crabb (23:03)
Yeah, yeah, okay, so let’s say someone’s hearing all this and they’re like, want to work with Steve, this sounds awesome. How can they get in touch with you and what kind of area do you work in? So where would they need to live?

Steve (23:13)
I mean I’ve been

all over the country, it doesn’t really matter. We can go anywhere. can go to California, Atlanta, Miami, Massachusetts. Nowadays with the remote initiative you can pretty much do everything. But I do like to put my feet on the ground out there, I fly out there. You get a different feeling when you actually walk the site. I’m not a big fan of designing, I don’t know, I’m not a fan of people…

Cody Crabb (23:19)
Awesome.

OK.

I guess that’s true, because yeah, you’re doing the designs, so it’s most…

Yeah.

Steve (23:40)
Designing it just on zoom because you really got to feel the space. Does that make sense?

Cody Crabb (23:44)
Yeah, it totally makes sense because it’s the same thing about people wouldn’t just buy a property without looking at it. Like it’s you know what I mean? There’s something you get so much information just from standing there.

Steve (23:54)
so much, it’s so worth, know, it’s cheaper to fly air, I two hours walking around and I have it all in my head just when I get there instead of trying to figure it out on a Zoom call, you know.

Cody Crabb (24:04)
Yeah,

absolutely. So okay, so in that case, so how can someone work with you if they want to? Where can they find you online?

Steve (24:10)
Call me up.

I answer my cell phone 914-879-5602 if you have a landscape question, whatever. I’m here. I mean, I’m old school, bro. It’s old school. ⁓ Now I’m doing the Instagram, at Steve Griggs Design. can DM me. Check out the website, stevegriggsdesign.com. ⁓

Cody Crabb (24:17)
That’s so cool. That’s so old school. I love it.

Awesome, I’m definitely just gonna check it out,

because it sounds like you’ve got some really awesome stuff on there. ⁓

Steve (24:34)
Yeah, yeah, we did some

cool product, very cool. I’m a little humble about it. We’ve done some cool stuff. It’s a cool profession. Like if somebody says, here, here’s my backyard. Give me like a just go ahead. Here’s a number. Like what can you do? What’s possible? that makes it a cool project. for the investor, investor fuel, like you said, most of the people, they’re like newbies and trying to learn the business of the real estate.

Cody Crabb (24:47)
Yeah, what could he do with this? Yeah.

Steve (25:00)
But like don’t skimp on the landscaping.

I’ve seen too many projects, I blew all my budget inside and by the time I get outside there’s nothing left. Oh, I have great sheetrock inside. Nobody cares about the sheetrock and the studs. They want to see the finishes.

Cody Crabb (25:09)
Yeah.

Steve (25:16)
know, really, it’s like them nice moldings and the details. Oh yeah.

Cody Crabb (25:16)
Yeah, it’s yeah, like a coat of paint, it’s kind of the equivalent of a coat

of paint. One coat of paint, it costs how much, takes how much time, but it makes a massive difference when someone’s looking at the place. yeah, sure.

Steve (25:28)
And the right color paint too. if it’s properly

designed, like the outside, the colors are warm and it all kind of ties together. Big difference when that little details, when you’re trying to show a house, huge difference.

Cody Crabb (25:35)
Yeah.

Yeah, man, I’m gonna keep a lot of this in mind just for when I’m kinda getting some work done on my yard here. Well, thanks so much for joining us today, Steve. This has been really interesting. ⁓ We really appreciate you sharing all these insights. And listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, and I know you did, go ahead and hit subscribe on the channel so you can get all of our episodes. Until then, we’ll see you next week on Real Estate Pros. Thanks, everybody.

Steve (26:03)
Take care,

Cody, you got it.