The Atlanta housing market is slowing down a bit and bidding wars are not as brutal as they were 6 months ago, however if your home is an A property and priced right, you will likely have multiple bids in a short amount of time. In a November 2020 blog article I outlined in detail suggestions how to get your home to A property status (if interested, read here…), but one thing I neglected to mention is this month’s focus.

What is one thing that instantly updates your home and provides the ultimate positive first impression? Replacing your garage door(s).

Every year Remodeling magazine releases a study known as the “Cost vs. Value Report” that highlights home improvement projects with the most return on investment (ROI). For three consecutive years, “replacing a home’s garage door” has been listed among the two best projects a homeowner can undertake to recoup investment upon selling the home.

According to their 2020 study, a homeowner will recoup 94.5% of the value of replacing a garage door.

In the past, garage doors were given very little attention by homebuilders and were pretty basic; blank panels of wood or aluminum slapped onto the front or side of a house. But somewhere along the way manufacturers realized that by slightly tweaking the designs, these doors could offer not just utility but greatly enhance the aesthetic appeal of the home’s exterior.

Now there is a wide selection of design choices to choose from and one of the most popular and enduring ones has been the carriage door. This provides a charming and elegant look to an otherwise somewhat bland part of the house. Prices range from the high hundreds for aluminum doors to several thousands for the heavier and more stately wooden doors. There are now even ‘smart’ garage doors but for the purpose of this article, I’m simply focusing on optics and first impressions.

But what if you don’t have the budget to spruce up your home to this degree before listing it? There’s another option that gives the impression of a carriage door that is much less expensive…magnetic hinges and handles you can attach to your existing door. These run under $20 on Amazon and instantly update your garage doors.

I’ll end on a personal note, we upgraded our garage doors shortly after moving into our current home and to this day I contend it was possibly the smartest $1,200 we could have spent. Not only do we get to appreciate them as homeowners, but when it’s time to sell we will definitely have a curb appeal advantage most of our competition won’t.

So there you have it, an instant face lift for your home which will set you apart from other listings in an easy and appreciable way.

By Holly A. Morris, Realtor

The Meridian Real Estate Group

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