The Realtor's Guide to Selling a Home with a Koi Pond

Are you a realtor? Do you think it’s extra hard to sell a home with a pre-existing koi pond? Well, never fear! We’ve written the complete guide to selling a home with a koi pond: highlighting their many attributes while finding solutions to perceived challenges. Click HERE to download your copy or read on!

The Realtor’s Guide to Selling a Home with a Koi Pond

Many homes in the Bay area have koi ponds. Their owners hope that they will be able to sell their houses without having to remove their ponds and fish. Sometimes it can be challenging to sell a home and convince the subsequent owner that a koi pond is a benefit. This guide illustrates the benefits of owning a home with a koi pond. It also gives suggestions to mitigate the real or imagined challenges.

Benefits

Nothing promotes relaxation like a koi pond.

Imagine taking your coffee/tea out to your pond every morning and simply observing your fish swim around.

Watching fish is a very meditative experience and good for your overall mental health. Studies have proven this: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33716589

Set up a lounge chair or small table near the pond in order to thoroughly enjoy the pond in full relaxation.

The sounds of the waterfall and other water features help calm the mind. Save money on sound machines and go for a much more natural option.

Your fish will love you.

Yes, it’s true! Koi have a broad range of personalities and will become very interactive at feeding time. We have owners who train their fish to eat out of their hands.

Fish will come to recognize each family members’ footsteps as they approach the pond. They can feel the difference in footfall vibrations through the pond. They will soon learn to swim over when they “hear” you coming! Children love them too!

Food motivation is a terrific training tool. Koi in particular can be trained very easily using food rewards. It may take some time, but they can be trained like any other companion animal. You can teach them to eat out of your hands and to swim over by name.

Amazing learning environment for children.

Kids love koi ponds, plain and simple. Being able to interact with aquatic animals in any environment is a fantastic learning Experience for children of all ages.

As they grow, children can become more involved in taking care of the pond, just like any other pet. Have younger children skim leaves off the top of the pond or assist in feeding the fish. Older children can help with tending aquatic plants and even basic maintenance operations, such as skimming leaves and cleaning skimmer baskets.

Challenges

Cleaning the Pond

As with any other pet, koi need to be cleaned up after every once in awhile. If your pond is setup correctly, the maintenance will be extremely minimal.

Maintenance companies are available to help make ponds more manageable. Clients can clean themselves, or you can schedule to have the cleaning done for you.

Have the current owners write out cleaning instructions from their current routine and run it by a pond professional. Just getting their opinion can help ease the new buyers concerns about owning a pond.

Have a few business cards with quotes from maintenance companies already at the home in case anyone has any specific questions about costs.

Keeping the Fish Healthy

What do you do if there is a sick fish in the pond? Did you know there are veterinarians who specialize in aquatic animal medicine! If you haven’t heard of these vets before, you certainly aren’t the first. Veterinary medicine is branching out into many different specialties to better serve a wider array of clients and pets.

If you are currently along the central California coast, you have our very own Aquatic Veterinary Services in your service providers!

Our veterinary staff is also available by phone and email to answer general questions for all interested parties, including other real estate agents, sellers and potential buyers.

If you are outside of our service area, check the following databases for your closest local fish veterinarian:

American Association of Fish Veterinarians: fishvets.org

World Aquatic Veterinary Medicine Association: wavma.org

Cost of a Koi Pond

If the pond is already built and its ecosystem established, the majority of the costs have already been taken care of. The cost of maintaining a pond is very minimal compared with building one.

Some costs to consider include: food and treatments for the fish, replacing any broken equipment, paying for a regular maintenance service (optional), and the cost of water.

In areas of water scarcity or during drought season in California, water costs can be the largest percentage of your koi pond costs. However, a correctly set up filtration system with a low bioload (# of fish/square foot) will require very little additional water.

• Water taken out of the pond for regular water changes should be used to irrigate gardens and lawns. The nitrate in the water is the ultimate plant fertilizer!

• Regular water quality testing should be performed in order to determine the frequency of water changes. Your local fish veterinarian or pond maintenance company can help you with this, or you can buy your own test kit online.

• Pond plants can also help decrease the buildup of harmful compounds in the pond.

• It is always better to have more filtration than the pond needs.

For More Assistance

If you or your clients have any additional questions, we are here to help!

Aquatic Veterinary Services