By Lance Fleming
“To opening new doors!” This was a toast that I heard at a retirement party this month. There are so many sayings, toasts, literary pieces and cliches in our everyday life that involve doors. And, of course, it got me thinking about doors and real estate.
Here are my Top 5 weird door facts, in the real estate world.
#5. If a house has an attached garage, there is a specific code about that door. IRC Section R302.5.1 to be specific, says that the door connecting a garage to the house has to be self-closing and self-latching. More fires start in the garage than anywhere else in the home. These doors also must be solid and have a minimum of a 20-minute fire rating.
#4. Overhead doors are wind rated. This was new to me, when I was talking with an architect about a barndominum that was being built in the Longmont area. Colorado mountain doors require 120 mile per hour rated garage doors. Front Range homes are required to have garage or overhead doors rated at 90 miles per hour.
#3. The history nut in me loves this… in 1942, Sears stopped their production of Sears Modern Homes after 34 years of building homes all across the United States. During this time, homes were purchased directly from the catalog. Shipped to your lot. Sears Modern Homes are some of my favorite homes out there. Their front door was one of the first questions that led to the design of the total home. Centrally located: Symmetrical colonial revivals, Cape Cods, or formal foursquare. Door off-center or on the side of the home: bungalows, American Foursquare variants, or side hall homes.
#2. Internationally, doors have their own meanings, purposes and designs. In Morocco, doors have a very low clearance. This requires a respectful bow by anyone entering, and also does not allow people on horseback to crash through. In some Persian and Indian homes there are two different knockers that make different sounds. These distinctions are to notify the homeowner if there is a man or a woman at the door. And my favorite, in Scotland, if you see someone has painted their front door red, this means that the homeowner has paid off their mortgage. The red door is a celebration of home ownership.
#1. When I talk with home owners that are looking to list their home, I often times bring up repainting their front door. This often times gives the home an updated look and sets it apart from the rest of the homes in the neighborhood. But the fun fact, studies say that a home with a black or charcoal front door sells for about $6,000 more than similar homes without black or charcoal doors. Dark blues are a classic sign of trust in the financial world and is a strong color for selling a home. Door colors must match or compliment the trim garage doors. On the other side of the coin, mismatched colors often sit on the market longer and sell for less. Yellow doors sell for about $3,000 than the average home.
To close the door on this month’s real estate discussion, every time that a client of mine signs their closing papers, it is some sort of passing to a new door. Wether they are selling their home, closing the door on that chapter of their lives and on to the next, or if they are buying a new place to live, then as the toast said…. “To opening new door!”
