Improve Your Home’s Curb Appeal With a New Garage Door

 Posted on December 19, 2018 in Uncategorized

When some part of your home, like a garage door, needs to be replaced, you should not just automatically buy the cheapest option or an exact replacement for the one that broke. Your home may well be the most valuable asset you have. When the time eventually comes to sell it, you will want to get the best possible price for it. This means that you cannot wait until you are ready to put the house on the market to think about maximizing its value to potential buyers. Rather, protecting the value of your home has to be an ongoing practice, like changing the oil in your car and buying new tires when the old ones wear out.

At a minimum, any major part of the home that breaks, like a garage door or furnace, needs to be repaired or replaced. However, that alone is not enough to maintain the value of your home. You also need to update your home's look and functionality, both interior and exterior, to keep up with changing lifestyles and tastes, at least to the extent that your budget allows.

Factors to Consider When Replacing Your Garage Door

You may first want to take a drive around your neighborhood and take a close look at the garage doors on other homes. Snap some photos you can refer to when you start shopping for a new door. Pay special attention to any homes that have been recently built or sold. What style of doors do most of the homes have? At a minimum, you want to keep your house up to par with other houses in your neighborhood.

You can also check websites such as Zillow or Redfin to look at pictures of other houses in the area with a similar size and price point as yours. Real estate agents call these "comparable homes," or "comps" for short. What do you like or not like about their garage doors? What style do you think would look good on your house?

Once you have established your comps, you can make a list of features you think your new garage door should have. For example, if most of your comps have doors that look like wood, make a note. You may not want the cost and maintenance hassle of real wood, but there are other material options that can give you the appearance of wood. If you currently have a plain, off-white garage door, consider how a darker-colored door might look against the rest of your home's exterior. Black doors are growing in popularity, but if you choose this option, you will want to make sure scratches will not show up on the finish.

If all of your comp houses have very plain doors, then you do not have to worry about doing anything extra fancy with your door in order to make your home competitive in the market. However, you should consider what you could do to give your home a "curb appeal" advantage over those other houses. It may not cost much more at all to add a couple of nicer features to your door, such as windows, architectural details, or decorative hardware.

Remember to consider not just the outside appearance but the insulation value of the door as well. A better-insulated garage door can be well worth a little extra cost, enabling you to work comfortably inside your garage for a greater part of the year.

Taking the time to choose an attractive new garage door will be worth the effort. It will make you feel good every time you drive up your house, in addition to protecting the value of your most important investment.

Let Blue Sky Builders, Inc. Help You Select a New Garage Door

Blue Sky Builders, Inc. will help you choose the best garage door for your home and install it to your full satisfaction. When you work with Blue Sky Builders, Inc., you get the peace of mind that comes from working with people who have been in this business for many years. We have provided superior service to DuPage County homeowners for four decades, so we know how our products hold up over time. To get our recommendations for your new garage door, contact us at 630-852-8485.