Yes — landscape lighting is one of the higher-return outdoor projects a homeowner can make, and that’s backed by real estate data, not just marketing claims. The National Association of Realtors’ 2023 Remodeling Impact Report: Outdoor Features found that landscape lighting projects recoup an estimated 59% of their cost at resale, and it’s the kind of upgrade real estate agents actively recommend before listing a home.

Here’s what the data actually shows about landscape lighting resale value, and why it moves the needle more than most outdoor projects.

What the Data Says About Outdoor Lighting ROI

NAR partnered with the National Association of Landscape Professionals to survey both Realtors and homeowners on 11 common outdoor projects — everything from pools and patios to landscape maintenance and lighting. A few findings stand out for landscape lighting specifically:

• 59% cost recovery at resale — among the higher recovery rates of the 11 outdoor categories studied.
• A Joy Score of 10 out of 10 — the highest possible rating, and tied for the top score across every outdoor project in the report. Homeowners who install landscape lighting are consistently happy they did, independent of the resale math.
• 92% of Realtors surveyed said they’ve recommended sellers improve curb appeal before listing a home.
• 97% of Realtors believe curb appeal is important for attracting buyer interest, and 98% believe it matters to buyers directly.

That combination — solid cost recovery plus the highest possible satisfaction score — is unusual. A lot of outdoor projects trade one for the other; landscape lighting is one of the few that scores well on both.

A professionally lit home exterior at dusk — the kind of twilight shot increasingly used in listing photography.

Curb Appeal Lighting Value Extends Past Listing Photos

Curb appeal lighting value isn’t just about how a house looks in a single daytime photo. Most home searches now start online, and listings increasingly include twilight or evening photography specifically because a well-lit exterior photographs differently — and more memorably — than a flat daytime shot. A home with thoughtfully placed lighting on its architecture, entryway, and landscaping stands out in a scroll of identical daytime listing photos in a way that’s hard to replicate any other way.

It also affects real, in-person showings. Evening and early-morning showings are common for buyers working around a 9-to-5 schedule, and a home that’s confidently lit at dusk creates a different first impression than one that goes dark and flat the moment the sun sets. That first impression happens before a buyer ever walks through the front door.

There’s also a perception effect that’s harder to quantify but shows up consistently in how Realtors talk about it: a well-lit property signals a well-maintained one. Buyers draw conclusions about how a home has been cared for from what they can see, and visible investment in the exterior — landscaping, lighting, a tidy entry — tends to get generalized into an assumption about the condition of everything else, including the parts they can’t see on a walkthrough.

Where Landscape Lighting Makes the Strongest Impression

Not every part of a property carries equal weight for resale perception. A few areas consistently do the most work:

• The entryway and address. A well-lit front door and visible house numbers are often the very first detail a buyer or agent notices pulling up for a showing.
• Mature trees and architectural features. Uplighting on a mature tree, a stone facade, or a distinctive roofline highlights exactly the kind of established, higher-value features a listing photo can’t fully capture in daylight.
• Walkways and steps. Beyond aesthetics, well-lit paths read as safety and attention to detail — two things that matter to buyers walking a property after dark.

These are also the areas a professional design typically prioritizes first, which is part of why professionally designed systems track more closely with the resale data than piecemeal DIY lighting does.

Does Outdoor Lighting Help Sell a House, Not Just Add Value?

The resale value question and the “does it help sell” question are related but not identical. Landscape lighting’s high curb appeal marks suggest it does both: it can support a stronger asking price, and it can also make a home stand out during the window that matters most — the first showings after listing.

Architectural uplighting, path lighting, and well-lit entryways all extend a home’s best features into the hours when a large share of showings and drive-bys actually happen.

Path lighting leading to the entry — one of the areas that makes the strongest first impression during evening showings.

Not All Lighting Delivers the Same Landscape Lighting Investment Return

The cost-recovery figures above reflect professionally designed and installed systems, not ad hoc solar stake lights or a string of mismatched fixtures. Design quality is doing real work in that number. A few things separate lighting that adds real landscape lighting investment return from lighting that doesn’t:

• Consistent color temperature. Warm white (typically 2700K-3000K) is the standard for residential landscape and garden lighting — mixed color temperatures across a property tend to read as unfinished rather than intentional.
• Fixture placement that highlights, not floods. Uplighting on architecture and trees, layered with path and entry lighting, reads as designed. A property lit uniformly and harshly reads as a job that wasn’t planned.
• Durability. A system with failing fixtures, flickering connections, or visibly mismatched hardware can actually hurt a first impression rather than help it — the opposite of what the resale data is measuring.

That’s the practical takeaway behind “does landscape lighting increase home value”: it’s a genuinely high-return project, but the return in the data comes from systems that were actually designed well, not lighting in general.

Getting the Return Without Guessing

Because the value shows up in the design as much as the fact that lighting exists at all, this is one area where the difference between a DIY kit and a professionally designed landscape lighting system is directly reflected in the numbers above — consistent color temperature, thoughtful fixture placement, and durable components are exactly what separates a system homeowners are proud of from one that just exists.

If you’re weighing landscape lighting with resale in mind, a design consultation is the fastest way to see what a professionally planned system would actually look like on your property, and what it could mean for both how you enjoy it now and what it’s worth later.