Familiar sounding situation. We are on a quarter acre in suburban NJ. Our time line for getting out is shorter than yours, but overall a really similar picture. I have pretty thoroughly ignored the question of what my permaculture leanings may do to the value of the property, which is probably not the best plan
Some thoughts - Permaculture is a design science - so apply the science of permaculture design to the challenge of producing a really optimized value suburban property - and I mean optimized for sale. Don't think of permaculture as forest gardens and perennial vegetables. Think of it as a problem solving toolkit.
You want to improve your permaculture knowledge and skills, which is great, laudable, all kinds of good. You are in a situation that places restrictions on exactly how you may go about exploring and practicing permaculture. That really is not a problem - it helps focus your application of permaculture!
I would look at things in the following sequence - Water, always a first priority- does it run off? where? Wet spots? Dry spots? In typical suburban settings there are two major water harvesting opportunities - the roof and the driveway. Look into rain barrel storage systems and setting up irrigation off of those for your landscaping (and think "landscaping" here, because what you want is the best curb appeal possible - your yield on this project is the sales price on your home in four years). Irrigation that you don't have to buy from the utility is money saved and value for the next owner. Look at your driveway - you can probably create some small water harvesting "berms" in asphalt or cement that will guide water from your driveway into your lawn, rather than just letting it run into the street and down the storm sewers. Does not take much, just a raised band 4 inches wide by 1 inch high should divert a major portion of water runoff into your lawn instead of the sewers. Depending on your contours, it may be worth doing some rain gardens or swales. Again, think "landscaping" with these and consider what you can plant that will enhance property value for your typical buyers.
After Water, I would think about Use and the Permaculture Zones - what areas of the property see what kinds of use, and how frequently? Is the front yard anything but eye candy for the neighbors (and the resident looking out a window or walking back and forth to the car, the mailbox...? Is there part of the backyard that gets used for outdoor dining, entertainment, etc. ? If there is not, is there a part where that would make sense to develop? A nice patio for grilling and hanging out with friends on a Saturday afternoon can be a real value added sort of feature. Practice some more "permie" skills by building a nice wood fired cob oven as a feature of the patio. How cool is it to bake pizza on your backyard patio with a few friends?
With water management organized and a sense of your zones and uses of areas in mind, I would next look toward what kinds of plantings and where. Remember that your "yield" is the highest sales price, not so much the food or other production that you might achieve. So I would say to think in terms of low maintenance, attractive, beneficial plantings and groups of plantings. That shaded back area might like hostas and rhododendrons, for example. You might want some low herbaceous borders in the front yard along the walkway, and those could contain various perennial or self-seeding cooking and/or medicinal herbs that also happen to be attractive to the eye and to pollinators. Your guilds might run less toward permaculture standards and more toward aesthetic groupings that can work together.
For example, a nice ornamental cherry tree, with crocus and daffodil surrounding it within the dripline, for early spring color, but also with poppies and echinacea for summer and late summer flowers. As suggested before, put a nice border to define this as a "garden bed" and perhaps some wood chip mulch to minimize weeds. This could make for a nice accent grouping in the front yard. How could anyone object to that in a nice suburban setting? Remember to run an irrigation line from your rain barrel collection system to the cherry guild.
Amaranth comes in some striking "ornamental" versions, and grows quite tall. I could imagine an intermixed planting of large sunflowers and amaranth as something that could be both decorative and a terrific attractant of songbirds. Again, a stacking function situation - you could get some food, they attract pollinators and insect predators, they're visually appealing and a bit of a bold statement. I might put this sort of bed someplace where I wanted a bit of visual screening, to obstruct my view of the neighbor's shed, or to reduce people looking right into my living room. This would be a tall - 8 feet, even in poor soil -installation.
But the details are for you to work out

My point is to think about this project in a very permaculture way - what is your desired yield? How do you best achieve that, within the parameters of permaculture? In this case, yield is selling price on the house, so plan in that direction. It will give you tons of permaculture practice.