Decision of Uncertainty

Decision: To invest or not to invest in landscaping my yard

My husband and I bought a new home approximately one year ago. We have been trying to decide if we should invest in professionally landscaping the yard. We would like to know if landscaping will add value to our home. We plan to sell our home in five to eight years from now and would like to see a return on our investment if we do add landscaping. We can make the decision to plant grass and wait for it to fill in which will take a few years or make the decision to spend more money and hire a professional to install sod and trees. This will give us an instant mature yard which is visually appealing and much less maintenance. Since we are the first home in the neighborhood and our yard is clearly visible to everyone that enters our neighborhood, we may also experience personal fulfillment from a nice yard.

Research

To find out about the costs involved in professional landscaping, we requested an estimate from a local landscaping company. We also visited our local Lowe’s department store to find out the cost of grass seed and the other tools and supplies needed to correctly plant new grass. The landscaping company gave us a time frame of a few hours to complete a full yard compared to several months or even one year to complete the yard growing in with grass. We also need to consider the time we will have to sacrifice spending on our boat and instead spending it working in the yard. Much of the research we found infers that the return on investment can be substantially related to the quality of the work and materials used. I also gathered information on the attitudes of home buyers and real estate agents that sell homes. Once I felt comfortable we had gathered enough information, I focused on interpreting the data to make a smart decision for our future.

Interpretation of Data (Bayes’ Theorem)

I am using Bayes’ theorem to interpret the data for my decision on whether to purchase professional...