Matt Latham: How Trees Increase Home Value

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (00:00)
So if you cut down a tree that’s been there for a hundred years or 50 years or whatever, that’s going to provide not infinitely, but so much more benefits than a brand newly planted tree. However, let’s say you cut that tree down, you now just have to replace it with a tree that’s going to do okay. And it has to be a pretty big tree, maybe 200 gallons or so, but

that is not going to provide the same benefits for, we ran the numbers actually one time, for 44 years on average.

Dylan Silver (01:59)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Matt Latham is a tree care professional and one of fewer than a hundred worldwide who hold both the ISA board certified master arborist and ASCA registered consulting arborist credentials. He’s the founder of Arborist On Demand, a Houston based consulting firm specializing in expert witness work, litigation support and advanced tree diagnostics. His company, Arborist On Demand operates nationally and internationally to provide unmatched

create advice both digitally and in person. Welcome to the show, Matt.

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (02:30)
Thanks for having me, Dylan. I appreciate you having me.

Dylan Silver (02:33)
Now I mentioned in the green room, I’m excited for this conversation because when we talk about real estate, one of the things that hardly gets mentioned is the importance of the trees on the real estate.

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (02:43)
Yes. Well, in the statistics, all the studies show that it turns out people like trees for the most part. There’s exceptions, of course, and certain states have less trees and all that. But for the most part, all of the studies show that a home with mature, healthy, thriving trees are going to be more valuable and self quicker than a home without trees. So it’s really important. And there’s a lot of reasons for that, I believe. ⁓

I think trees are good for humans. think when God was making everything at creation, used a lot of copy and pasting and he designed things for us. And so that in turn has some certain effects on us. So first of all, y’all like living in homes. We’re talking real estate. Guess where tree, where homes come from is they’re made from trees, right? So that in and of itself adds some value to a tree. But even beyond that, there’s so many studies out there about

⁓ traffic gets safer, communities get safer, crime goes down, ADD symptoms and ADHD symptoms go down, mental well-being and overall happiness goes up. so cancer patients recover faster and more frequently just when they have a window with a tree view. And so I think that trees are very good for humans. And really that’s what drives everything I do is we love our trees, we live under them, they become part of our home.

really kind of, I call them our green pets, almost kind of part of our family.

Dylan Silver (04:11)
I mean, I mentioned to you in the green room

that I’m out here in Santo Domingo and it’s hard to be in a bad mood when you’re looking at a coconut tree or holding a coconut. Right. And so if we extrapolate that you might not be holding a coconut. Right. But if you’re seeing, you know, big arching trees over a roadway, that’s just the scenic thing. Right. And wherever you are in the country, I think everyone can kind of relate to the emotion that that provides. But when we talk about ⁓

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (04:21)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Dylan Silver (04:40)
contacting an arborist. Most people who are reaching out, is it when something maybe has gone wrong?

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (04:42)
Mm-hmm.

Unfortunately, ⁓ most calls that I get are reactionary calls. Something’s going on with my tree. I need to figure it out. It is so much easier when you just set the foundation right. ⁓ And I think that goes with anything is if you’re building a business, you said you’ve got to lay the foundation properly and build upon that. And the Bible talks about how train a child in the way he should go. And when he’s old, he will never turn from it. And turns out trees are very similar.

is, you know, especially on a younger neighborhood, maybe a new, new development community, things like that. You see all these brand new trees pop up and I happen to live in one of those. So I know it firsthand. I see all my neighbors doing it wrong. And unfortunately, there’s just not a lot of education that goes into when you bought your first home. Did you know anything about trees or were you just kind of winging it? You know, and I don’t think many people do. And unfortunately, there’s just not a lot of public education out there.

Dylan Silver (05:36)
Yeah.

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (06:31)
And really we’re all just busy anyways. So it’s hard to juggle life and kids and work and all these things. But that’s why I’m here. Go ahead.

Dylan Silver (06:41)
One of the things that I think about, haven’t, again, I haven’t had this discussion with anyone else on the show. I haven’t spoken with an arborist probably ever, right? And when I think about Texas real estate, I know you’re based in the greater Houston Metro. I don’t often see trees in most subdivisions. Are HOAs saying you can’t have trees or is it just there’s so many new HOAs and so many new subdivisions that people haven’t had time to plant trees?

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (06:49)
Sure.

Well, if you know Houston real estate or Texas real estate in general, we’ve been growing. It seems like a lot from all over places in the country are flocking to Texas, Florida, places like that. And so we have a lot of new developments. We have a lot of new communities go up. And again, getting back to that laying the foundation, right? Principle is unfortunately, whenever ⁓ whenever these new communities go up, the builders plant it, they plant it cheaply and in high volume.

And so they’re not done well. And then the new homeowners, again, often are first time buyers or they just, they’re not arborists, right? This is my job, not theirs to know these things. so progressively, if the trees aren’t cared for well and the foundation of the tree’s life hasn’t been staged well, then you’re going to have problems and that can later lead to decline. Believe it or not, a lot of HOAs actually require a certain number of trees, which can lead to its own set of problems.

Dylan Silver (08:05)
Hmm.

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (08:07)
too, because often when they’re coming up with these bylaws and these requirements for certain trees, there’s a master gardener or maybe just somebody that loves gardening, is passionate about plants and has a bunch of house plants or whatever. They might be on the board of directors setting the stage and coming up with the bylaws and helping to consult, you will, in that sense. They’re not thinking in terms of decades, which you really have to when it comes to trees. ⁓

There’s a there’s a group called Texas historic tree coalition and I was out verifying trees for them so they can get on the historic registry and we’re look looking at these massive 60 inch diameter live oaks that are Estimated I think we don’t know but give or take 300 years You don’t you don’t get that unless you plan it or quite frankly, you just leave them alone in the forest. It’s usually when

Dylan Silver (08:52)
Wow.

Now,

when we we talk about, you know, property values and you know what people are doing to add value to their property, people talk bedrooms and baths. I’ve never heard anyone talk trees. But do trees potentially have a value add, you know, component to property value? Will they positively impact property values?

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (09:08)
Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. And the, U S forest service actually put together a really neat tool called I tree. And you just type it in I, the letter I, and then T R E E. ⁓ and just go look that up on Google, but you can actually plug in your tree, give it the diameter, give it the canopy spread, which you just look up on Google maps, ⁓ and just do the little measuring tool. And you basically, it basically tells you what benefits it’s providing. So that’s one way. ⁓ so most mature trees are going to

provide hundreds of dollars worth of value every single year. So imagine all you have to do is water them, occasionally fertilize them and really make sure you’re not screwing them up is the main thing. Trees are pretty self-sufficient. ⁓ don’t have arborists go out into the forest and fix the trees.

Dylan Silver (10:41)
Now, know, one of the things that I think about is, and I hate to say this almost, but you know, people are so concerned about their sidewalks and the road that they might be looking at it, well, is the tree, you know, potentially gonna cause damage down the line to sidewalks and to the road, et cetera? Are there any, you know,

HOAs or movements that you’ve heard of where people don’t want to have certain types of trees because they could potentially break up the sidewalk or the road, etc.

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (11:14)
Absolutely. Yeah, if you want to have a little bit of fun go look up us save Montrose live oaks calm And this was kind of a there were no funds. This was just a ragtag group of folks that got together there’s a political organization here in Houston, I won’t name names, but they They they wanted to bulldoze all the trees and there’s there we kind of 284 mature live oaks that were 40 plus years old they wanted to bulldoze all of them so they can widen the side sidewalks and

This was funded by some of the bike lobbyists here in town and what they wanted was these cool bi-directional pathways and they said, build it and they shall come. Well, I don’t know if you’ve been to Houston, but it’s pretty hot in the summer. Like people don’t get outdoors unless you’ve got a canopy coverage. So yes, there are actually people out there that would love to see getting rid of the trees. And unfortunately, a lot of it has to do with money and things like that.

There’s actually groups that I know of that plant trees professionally and they will go in and consult for municipalities and say, well, the trees are, they’re condemned. They’re, dead, disease dying, whatever. Um, they’re, they’re not good. They’re struggling because they’re in a built urban environment. Uh, and, they’ll even make the excuse of the sidewalks. Um, but real realistically, that doesn’t have to be the case. There’s a book out of 2003 called, uh,

I think it’s preventing infrastructure damage by tree roots. And some of leading industry professionals out there, I’ve done a video on some techniques they go over through that book, or several videos really. But one in particular called root bridging is one I’m particularly passionate about because it just works really well. It’s really cheap. And that’s something you can do beforehand that’ll really give decades or maybe even centuries, we don’t know yet, of benefits. But essentially you bolt steel plates onto the roots.

And you kind of curve it around, ⁓ however many roots you’ve got, it’s all individual, obviously. So, ⁓ we’ve to go, go by what the tree puts out and then you just pour directly on that. And because those steel plates are bolted to the roots, as the tree pushes up and those roots expand in diameter, they can’t because they’re bolted to themselves. So what they do is they wind up spreading out. ⁓ and this in turn, obviously shifts that pressure from going up and cracking the concrete or whatever.

to going out and actually providing more surface area underground.

Dylan Silver (13:39)
How

much does something like that roughly cost folks?

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (13:43)
Really depends on what stages of construction, ⁓ you know, for it, and it really depends on the value, but anywhere from between 500 and you know, several thousands of dollars. So it just depends. It’s kind of a specialty thing. It has to be custom built to the trees specific needs and all that. ⁓

Dylan Silver (14:01)
Could it also be done for a newer tree or would it have to be, you okay. So you don’t have to wait all this time to see where the roots are gonna potentially spread out to. It can be, you know, newer.

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (14:04)
Yes. Yeah.

And you can help with that too through things like root barriers and things like that. There’s actually growth regulators that you can use. can go in and act just like you can prune above ground plant parts. You can prune the trees canopy. You can prune the root system as well. And unfortunately that’s not a common practice, but guys are really picking up on these things too over time.

Dylan Silver (14:33)
Would someone have to reach out to someone like yourself in order to do that or are there folks that they might be able to, contractors who might understand some of

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (14:42)
I have yet to find a contractor that understands. ⁓ I’m working on a really neat project where they transplanted a 63 inch diameter inch ⁓ live oak. And just to put it in perspective, the root ball I measured to be about 67 feet. ⁓ And so imagine the amount of weight on that. Well, my job is to preserve it through construction. And when the engineers and the architects all put their heads together, they came up with a plan that basically has

the same root zone as was transplanted. Well, here’s the thing, that tree’s couple hundred, 300 years old. We won’t know until it gets cut down and we count the rings. But what they didn’t factor in is this tree had about 80 % more or about eight times more root system than it currently does. Now it can live. We can keep it on what I would call life support and keep this tree alive for decades, maybe centuries. We don’t know.

maybe even longer than the community and the marketplace lasts, but it’s never going to thrive. That tree had so much more. When they removed that tree, they cut out 80 % of the root zone. Most of those are the small roots that absorb nutrients, minerals, and water.

And so what I came in and said, hey, I’m really sorry. I’m going to mess up your plans a lot. And we designed, we call it a silvacell system or a structural soil system.

is basically underneath all these other buildings and play areas and sitting areas in this little marketplace is we’ve set it up to where the roots can continue to spread right underneath where people are dining and playing and all that. So it’s a really neat thing. So yes, some contractors are a little more privy to these things. Some people, some contractors even love trees and want to do what they can to protect them. But that’s not their specialty, right? That’s my specialty.

⁓ it’s, really advised anytime you’re looking at anything in real estate to bring in, whether it’s commercial or residential or whatever. Yeah. Is, bringing an arborist to really start evaluating the trees and planning.

Dylan Silver (17:26)
someone special.

I’m a big fan of parks. I’m a big fan of really any outdoor activities. I’ve been in a few run clubs and I love that. I love seeing this trend of people being outdoors, especially honestly in Texas where I think that sometimes I’ll be running and I don’t see it as many people outdoors as I would like. And I think where’s everybody there inside, right? Cause it’s so hot. I also have seen maybe a resurgence of interest in public spaces, parks and things of that sort.

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (18:01)
Yes.

Dylan Silver (18:04)
But I’ve also seen people creating almost like artificial public spaces. A big one is like pickleball courts, right? And so I’m seeing kind of the rise of both of these trends simultaneously. As an arborist, are you seeing just more broad public interest in these types of green spaces? Not just in one segment, but in multiple, right?

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (18:28)
Yeah, and I think the reason that you’re really coming around to this and like getting outdoors is just because you’re human. Like I said, that’s that’s such a human thing is we as humans, we love being outdoors. think we’re meant to be outdoors more than we are now. And we’ve built this little boxy life where we go to our box home, get in our box car and, you know, whatever. And that’s that’s fine. We have have lifestyles and we live luxuriously in America in the Western culture.

⁓ but I really think it’s important for us to get outside. And again, all the research has kind of backs that up is that the more we’re outside, the better we do overall. And so I think you’re very much not alone. And I think people are coming around to that, ⁓ and kind of demanding more green spaces, more activity, more opportunities for activities. Even see, I think I saw in California, they built a bridge over a highway so that the animals can traverse back and forth and,

migrate and do their animal thing. And people are the same way as you see that on highways too, as you see little parks set up for little green spaces right above the highway in New York, Dallas has one. And so it’s yeah, you’re absolutely spot on people love being outdoors subconsciously or otherwise.

Dylan Silver (19:42)
I’m almost to the point where I think ⁓ there’s gonna be a lot of people who are doing some type of hybrid work or hybrid remote work and they’re gonna want to be seeing the places that they’re working in have an outdoor feel to it. Like when you go to an open air restaurant and you’re like, wow, this is nice. People are gonna start to expect some of that. I see this coming down the pipeline, potentially where they’re living, potentially where they’re working and trees are gonna be a big, big part of that.

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (19:59)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think I think you’re absolutely right. I was just talking with a friend of mine the other day about, you know, creating some vertical type green spacing and using real estate on the side of a building, let’s say, as a place where you can enhance the green space and add various plants that would do well. You see it trend on like the tops of buildings where they’re creating these green spaces, these little parks bringing dirt right up to the top of a building. And so I think you’re absolutely right. As again, people are getting

to the point where we’re realizing we’ve lived in this toxic indoor world for so long. And, you know, we really need to get pun intended, I guess, back to our roots is get outside and enjoy nature. Because like I said, it’s just good for humans.

Dylan Silver (20:52)
Hey, yo.

We are coming up on time here, Matt. I do want to ask you about different markets of the country and potentially different issues that people might be seeing. I’m a Texas licensed realtor and still going to be back in Texas here shortly, but I grew up in northern New Jersey and I traveled around the country. Are there any trends that you see as an arborist that are specific to certain markets or are people buying a certain type of tree in one place?

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (21:16)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (21:26)
Are there any trends that you see like that?

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (21:28)
I do. Yeah. And a lot of that has to do with politics and policy. ⁓ Like, for example, New Jersey is one of the seven states in the United States that has a licensing requirement. This is not a certification like the International Society of Agriculture has. This is actually a license. So in order to do tree work in New Jersey, and there’s not a lot of police to manage it, of course, but you technically have to be licensed as a licensed tree expert through the state of New Jersey.

In Texas, we don’t have that. If you’ve got a chainsaw and a ladder, all of a sudden you’re a tree man or a tree woman. so, you know, especially during those hurricanes and storms, all of sudden the roofing guys and the landscape guys and the painters all become arborists and.

Dylan Silver (22:14)
So cutting

down a tree in New Jersey might be a misdemeanor?

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (22:17)
It absolutely can. Yeah, there’s there’s big penalties and even on a more local, ⁓ local basis. So in Austin, he’s mentioned San Marcos, maybe San Marcos is the same, very robust, ⁓ very robust tree protection ordinances in almost every municipality is going to have a tree protection ordinance, but they all vary. And so here in Houston, one of my longterm plays is I want to see them rewritten.

Because right now there’s a lot of emphasis on replacing trees when you cut them down, but that’s really the only requirement.

So if you cut down a tree that’s been there for a hundred years or 50 years or whatever, that’s going to provide not infinitely, but so much more benefits than a brand newly planted tree. However, let’s say you cut that tree down, you now just have to replace it with a tree that’s going to do okay. And it has to be a pretty big tree, maybe 200 gallons or so, but

that is not going to provide the same benefits for, we ran the numbers actually one time, for 44 years on average.

And so it’s just not worth it.

Dylan Silver (23:20)
There’s like an

exponential growth almost like investing. It’s an investment of a kind, right? You’re seeing, you know, the, to use a very simple term, the money that you would put into like a stock exchange, you might not see exponential growth in that until years down the line, depending on how the market works and how your dollar cost averaging into it, et cetera. Something similar with trees, it sounds like.

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (23:26)
Yes.

Dylan Silver (23:45)
We are coming up on time here though, Matt. Any new projects that you’re working on and then as well, know, what’s the best way for folks to get in contact?

Matt Latham, BCMA/RCA (23:52)
That’s great. Yeah. ⁓ one of the big projects I’m working on, I do have a book that’s specifically targeting for, targeted for homeowners and people not arborists like myself that wouldn’t understand trees. It’s kind of like a complete fool’s guide, if you will, to owning a tree. And it’s designed to go over everything you can think of from planting to care for, you know, fertilization management, and even how do you deal with insurance as it regards to trees? How do you deal with litigation and your neighbor’s tree and things like that?

So it’s designed to be the whole thing. ⁓ You know, I’m actually being asked by the International Society of Arboriculture to speak for them at their annual conference this year. So that’s a little personal. I’m excited about that because we’re going to talk to Arborists about these things and really taking ourselves a little more professionally as an industry as a whole. But in order to get a hold of me, the best way is just through my website. It’s arboristondemand.com and you can always reach out to me at info at arboristondemand.org.

or via phone at 713-385-7040.