Hey homeowners! Are you happy with your garage door, or is it something you try not to think about? Many homes are still using a garage door installed decades ago. If you’re considering selling your home soon, an outdated door won’t do you any favors during appraisal, and it could even sour a potential buyer’s impression of the property. For a homeowner who is considering selling, it makes quite a bit of sense to go ahead and upgrade the door now – barring extreme circumstances, a garage door will work excellently for the first year of installation without problem, so you may as well let your family enjoy some time with the new door before passing it on to the next owners.
If you’re going to replace your garage door, you should make sure that you’re getting your money’s worth, both in the short term and when it comes time to sell. Multiple factors, from your choice of door to the layout of the surrounding exterior of your home, can make the difference between presenting your home as a dump or a mansion. Today, we’re going to give you our installation, repair, and house-dressing tips for getting the most out of a garage door replacement prior to selling your home.
1. Installation
The first step to revamping your garage door is… actually getting a new garage door! Remodeling Magazine creates an Annual Cost vs. Value report that provides a nationwide average for how much money homeowners can expect to make back on any home improvement projects they perform, and in both mid-range and upscale markets, a garage door replacement yields an expected return of over 90%! Of course, that number only takes into account the monetary value, and the sort of garage door makeover that we’re going to discuss could provide a whole host of other benefits!
Now, choosing the correct door is important. If you’re concerned with the resell value, you don’t want to pick anything too outlandish, no matter how much it fits your style. Things that are more neutral or understated work better for selling your home, since they’ll appeal to more palettes. Similarly, if you’re having other exterior work done on your home, consider a garage door that matches the new siding, shutters, or entry door. Color-coordination makes your home look intentional and well-kept, instead of looking like a half-old and half-new mess of market-bait.
You want to choose a modern door for this sort of upgrade, because the features and lasting power of a modern door make great selling points. New doors require less garage door repair, are more energy efficient, come standard with multiple safety features, and are better insulated. In short, a new door can be a mark of pride for a home on the market. This will help guarantee your return-on-investment stays high, unlike an older, cheaper door that does not provide these advantages.
2. Staging
Once you’ve chosen the right door for your home’s exterior, it pays off BIG TIME to spend a couple hours improving the “staging” of the door. You probably put quite a bit of thought into staging your home’s interior for sale, but staging the exterior can be just as important. Leaving a good first impression on a potential buyer can totally change the mood of an open house, and you want the last view that they see driving away to be as pleasant as possible.
So how do you accomplish that? Well, one easy step is to upgrade or hide any external keypad to your garage door. Although external keypads are a huge quality of life improvement over having to carry a garage door remote, they can be unsightly, especially if yours is worn and yellowed with age. Instead, get a pad that matches the color of the wall it’s secured to, and hide it inside a protective plastic shell case.
Next, look at the rest of your exterior. Are the lights by your garage door busted or ugly? Do you have dying plants framing your new garage door? Do the beautiful garage door windows you splurged on look into a cramped and dingy garage? These seemingly minor cosmetic details can make all the difference. New light fixtures not only frame the door, but also let you pick the quality of light that the door is viewed under at night. Putting some potted plants nearby, or replanting any old plant beds, can totally change the look of your home’s exterior for the better, and highlight the beauty that is your new door!
That’s it! Once you’ve followed those two simple steps – installing a lovely new garage door and staging the exterior of your home to support it – you’re already ahead of 99% of your competition. The next step is to make some tiny changes to present your home is the nicest way possible, to increase your chances of a successful sale.
We already have a blog about how to maximize your curb appeal via your garage, so start there! Then, make sure that your home’s exterior is clean and neatened up. When showing your home, you don’t want it to look too “lived in” – instead, opt for the feel of a showroom, with your classiest decorations and no clutter. This goes for the garage as well! No matter how pretty you make your garage door, if what’s behind it is ugly, you’re going to have some trouble showing it off.
We hope that you’ve found this guide useful! Charlotte has some great mid-range and upscale homes, but many of them were built during the save development and so all of their garage doors match! If you want to stand out, consider having a new residential garage door installed today!
