Sign Of The Times

A sign that things are getting pretty bad, they're painting the dead lawns of foreclosed properties green to help move inventory. Perhaps a sign that we're almost through the worst of it....perhaps?. From the Recordnet, Stockton California.

STOCKTON - A Stockton man sees the growing number of dead brown lawns of foreclosed homes in the area and sees nothing but green.

Nick Terlouw has launched the Greener Grass Co., which amounts to a service in which he sprays dead lawns with a deep green, water-based dye that makes the turf look good enough for a golf course or a professional football stadium.

For between $175 and $225 per yard, Terlouw uses a motor-powered 50-gallon insecticide sprayer designed for treating orchard trees. He waves his magic wand and in broad sweeps, a la painting a house, makes tired, if not expired, turf sit up and sparkle like Shirley Temple.

"Looking good from over here," hollered Chad Lam, a homeowner watching Terlouw spruce up a brown lawn across the street. "I'm glad to see that happen. It gives us all a lift around here."

Terlouw, who formerly had a window-cleaning business, said he got the idea for the new business from football games.

"They paint logos on football fields," he said. "Why can't we do the same for homes?"

He's had about 10 jobs since he started the business six months ago, but he expects to do better this year, with home foreclosures continuing through this year.

The wet season literally puts a damper on business because he can spray only when the turf is thoroughly dry. The commercially available lawn dye needs to dry two hours, but then will last for three to four months, he said.

Terlouw is trying to market his service to real estate agents and property managers. One home-owners association has hired him to spray a couple of dead lawns, he said.

"Honestly, I see a gold mine here."

One of his customers is Dave Harmon, a real-estate agent with Coldwell Banker Grupe, Stockton. He paid Terlouw $200 to spray the front lawn before a weekend open house on a foreclosure house in a relatively upscale development northeast of March and West lanes.

Most asset managers of foreclosure properties wouldn't be interested in covering such a cosmetic improvement to the lawn, Harmon said, so it's coming out of his pocket. He's hoping it will pay off with a sale.

He said he might use the service again and suspects that other agents could be interested as well to help spruce up the curb appeal of some foreclosure properties.

"I would only do it on homes in nice locations where I could attract some attention at an open house," he said. "Homes in a mediocre neighborhood probably won't get much play so far as decorating lawns."

So would this be a matter of disclosure by the seller to any prospective buyer, to wit: the grass that looks great may be, or is, dead?

Harmon said it hadn't crossed his mind that he would need to.

Actually, at the house where Terlouw was spraying Friday, the grass looked exceedingly anemic - perhaps mostly from winter dormancy - but the turf clearly wasn't dead.

After the spraying, the grass had a sparkling appearance and looked not only alive but also lush and thriving. This was so pronounced that the lawn jumped out on the street as too green compared with any other lawns, even the best kept ones, in the neighborhood.

In other words, the grass looked so good as to be suspect.

Paul Tamayo was visiting his daughter down the street from Terlouw's spray job and couldn't help but come over and ask about the service.

"I'm going to talk to my daughter to see if she wants it done," he said. "I mean, that's beautiful."