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My dad had a 40-year career in real estate in New Jersey, which meant that a lot of the dinner table conversation while I was growing up was about real estate. And the one thing my dad would come back to, over and over again, was curb appeal. So I know exactly what he would say about my business if he were still around: If your concrete driveway has cracks in it, it doesn’t have curb appeal. And if it doesn’t have curb appeal, it won’t get as much buyer interest–or offers–as a listing that does have curb appeal.

Cracks happen in driveways for lots of reasons. In areas with harsh winter weather like New Jersey, it’s the hard freezes and the spring melts. Here in southern California, it can be the water that seeps in when we have a rainy year after a drought, poor installation, low quality materials, deferred maintenance or the thousands of mini (and sometimes bigger) earthquakes that we have.

But when prospective buyers see those cracks in your concrete, they’re not thinking about rain, snow and earthquakes. They’re thinking: If this seller didn’t take care of this maintenance, what else hasn’t been done in this house?

Concrete repair boosts curb appeal

So if you are getting ready to list your home in Orange, Riverside or San Diego counties, take a minute to think about what the state of your concrete driveway, walkway, patio or pool deck says about your curb appeal and attention to maintenance.

Step one is to walk your property and look for cracks in every concrete surface. Step two is to seal any cracks you discover with a high quality, industrial-grade sealant, like the Sherwin-Williams products that we use at The Driveway Company of Southern California. Step three is to look at the joints and if filled, the materials used. In our area, it’s not uncommon for the joints to be made of wood, and wood does not age the same way as concrete. You can take the wood out, then fill them again with a flexible material that will move when the ground underneath us does. Remember to seal the new joints just as you would the crack in your concrete driveway. That can be a bit fussy, which is why I am glad that my crews are trained in hand-tooling and finishing joint fills, so that they look beautiful and blend with the concrete around them. We know curb appeal.

Of course, you’re probably doing a million things right now to get your house ready to sell and no one will fault you if you decide to hand your concrete repairs over to a professional, like The Driveway Company of Southern California. My dad, who never missed an opportunity to tell the world how great his four daughters were, would tell you you made a smart decision.