Home Seller Tip: Sell Your Front Door
Every potential buyer who comes to see your home is going to spend a moment standing and staring at your front door before it’s unlocked. Most buyers will ask themselves two questions while waiting for that door to swing open:
1. Would I be happy walking through this door each day?
2. Will this entryway impress others who visit me?
If the answers are “No,” you’ve already formed a less than favorable first impression that can hurt your chances for a sale. That’s why it’s important to sell your front door right off the bat.
Here are some tips for making your door more likeable:
- Give your front door a shiny new coat of paint. Choose a color that accents the rest of your home. For example, if you have a white house, paint your door red or black. If you have a yellow house, consider painting your door turquoise or green. For more ideas, go to your local paint store and look at possible color combinations.
- If you’re unable to paint your door at this time, make sure it’s clean, dust-free and there aren’t any smudges at the bottom where people have used their shoes to hold or kick open the door while holding bags of groceries.
- Consider installing a metal kick plate. Kick plates are thin sheets of metal in either gold, brass or silver that can be added to the bottom of your door to give it a rich, sophisticated look. You’ll often see them on the doors of expensive lawyers, doctors and investment company offices, but they look equally impressive on the front door of a home. Kick plates are inexensive and simple to install, and they can instantly make your house look like it’s worth more.
- Make sure your door knob and other hardware and hindges are shiny and clean. After years of usage knobs have a habit of gathering outdoor grime that you might not have even noticed. Use a metal polish to get rid of this dirt. You might be surprised to see the big difference this alone can make in the appearance of your door. If your door hardware is old, battered and well… ugly, you might want to consider getting new replacement hardware that matches your home and the style of your door. One word of warning though: Make sure the new fixtures match the current holes in your door!
- If your front door is battered and beyond painting, cleaning and enhancing, consider purchasing a new door. It can make a big difference in a buyer’s first impression. I know this is true, because I once fell in love with a home because of the beautiful inlaid, stained glass door. If it wasn’t for the washing machine in the living room, I might have thought seriously about buying that house. That is the power the right front door can have on a buyer!
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Home Seller Tip: Sell Your Front Door…
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