Front Doors Are Key To Your Home's Curb Appeal
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Before the seller puts up a 'for sale' sign, I take them
across the street, have them look at the house, then bring them
up the walkway to the
front door.
Then, we stand at the
front door for a minute or two, since a buyer will typically
wait there with the real estate agent until being let into the
house. That's when I stress that the
front door and entryway should be clean, fresh and make a
great appearance, since buyers will spend a significant amount
of time there, and because it is the first thing they see when
they come up to the house. |
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"Curb appeal" is a term often used when a house goes up for sale. But it
also describes the first impression your home makes on family, friends and other
visitors while you are living there.
Many things can contribute to curb
appeal — the landscaping around the house, the quality of the paint job and,
perhaps most important of all, the front door system that serves as the
front
entryway to your home.
If the
front entryway to your home is a little worse for wear, you might want to
enhance its appearance by replacing the
front door system. And for lasting curb appeal, one of the best choices you
can make is to upgrade to one of the new generation of
fiberglass front doors.
According to Therma-Tru Corp., the nation's leading manufacturer of
exterior door systems,
fiberglass
front doors have been growing in popularity ever since their introduction in
the eighties. The reason: they offer the look and feel of a
wood front door but without all the problems associated with wood, such as
splitting, cracking and warping.
Fiberglass front doors are also rendering once-popular
steel front doors
obsolete. Aesthetics is one of the reasons.
Steel front doors,
which can dent and rust, tend to look shabby over time, while fiberglass front
doors maintain their just-installed appearance for years. Fiberglass front doors
also feature crisply detailed panels that produce much more dramatic shadow
lines than steel front doors.
What's more, some
fiberglass front doors, such as Therma-Tru's Smooth-Star™ door, even mimic
the look of a painted wood front door, but at a much more affordable cost. They
also have another big advantage over
wood front doors, especially in these days of rising oil prices: Fiberglass
front doors help conserve energy, providing five times the insulation value of
standard wood front doors. Over time, the savings on energy costs can help pay
for the new front door system.
Oftentimes, however, the real payback with a handsome fiberglass
entryway comes when you go to sell your home. That's when enhanced curb appeal
can help bring a higher sales price and help sell a home more quickly.
Charlette Seidel, a vice president with Coldwell Banker Residential Real
Estate Inc., one of the largest real estate companies in North America, puts all
of her clients through an exercise that helps them appreciate the importance of
a home entryway to the overall curb appeal of their home.
"Before the seller puts up a 'for sale' sign, I take them across the
street, have them look at the house, then bring them up the walkway to the front
door," Seidel says.
"Then, we stand at the front door for a minute or two, since a buyer
will typically wait there with the real estate agent until being let into the
house. That's when I stress that the front door and entryway should be clean,
fresh and make a great appearance, since buyers will spend a significant amount
of time there, and because it is the first thing they see when they come up to
the house."
As testimony to the importance of such "first impressions," Seidel says
that roughly 60 percent of the calls her office receives are from prospective
buyers inquiring about a house they saw while simply driving down the street.
While it's true that an attractive front door system is just one facet
of a home's curb appeal, many real estate experts agree that it is a very
important element. So if you're not satisfied with the appearance of your
entryway, you might want to consider a sure investment in a state-of-the-art
fiberglass door system. They come in a wide range of styles to match virtually
any type of architecture.
