Last week, I read an article about things you should do before putting your house on the market. Most everything was basic stuff you hear all the time, but one thing caught my attention. It said to replace old windows. It's not something I hadn't heard before, but the article continued and said, "...you can often upgrade standard windows to vinyl for a reasonable $300 per window. The average home has 8 windows..."
The part that caught my eye was not the $300 a window, which I do think is a high estimate, but that the "average" home has only 8 windows. Where are these homes with 1 and 2 windows to offset all the homes with 30 or 40+ windows? How could the average be 8? My house has 30 operable windows and about 10 that are inoperable, so that's 40 right there...
I decided to conduct my own unscientific study to get a more realistic average. I posted the question on my profile on Facebook, as well as a private group to see what kind of answers I got. Overall, I received 1 answer of 6 windows and 2 answers of 8 windows, though one of those said she had an additional large, inoperable window. Where were all the 1 or 2 window responses?
The most windows someone posted was 69 with a breakdown of 35 on the ground floor, 23 on the second floor, and 11 on the third floor. Not many houses have 3 floors, but it's still 58 windows if you ignore the third floor.
The unscientific average I came up with was 20.26 windows. This is no where near 8. If my average came in around 10 or 12, I would then think my sample was just a little unrepresentative of the average across the country. To come up with a number over 20, which is no where near 8, makes me think even more how ridiculous the report was that I read.
To replace 20+ windows at $300 a pop, we're now talking a little more than chump change. I can't say I would spend $12k to replace my 40 windows if I was going to sell. I think I would leave that up to the new homeowner, and make sure my house showed well and was priced right!
Post the number of windows you have and let's see if we get a different "average"...
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Donna Harris, REALTOR®
RE/MAX Austin Skyline
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Copyright© 2011 By Donna Harris, All Rights Reserved. You may re-blog with links back to this post.
* How Many Windows Does the Average House Have? * was first published on donnahomesblog.com.
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