Replacement Windows Make Big Difference in Home Values
by:
Robert Greenlee
The economy hasn’t looked this gloomy for many years. Not
since the great depression have real estate values taken such
a hit in the market place. Home values are just one more
cohesive financial factor that has been severely challenged
in this new global economic struggle.
Even though indicators are suggesting the worst might now
be over, it doesn’t do much for your moral to see your
retirement savings may have lost 40% or more of their value
and your home probably has taken a substantial decline in
value in the market place as well. Even if you were lucky
enough to not have your mortgage tied to questionable
banking and investment institutions, you more than likely
lost a sizable sum of the value of your home as the real
estate market plummeted to their lowest levels in recent
history.
If you survived the downturn to this point with anything
left in the bank and are still able to live in your home,
consider yourself amongst the lucky. Tens of thousands of
Americans lost everything including their homes in this
financial calamity. Sadly there may be nothing short of
actual charity or government assistance that can be done for
those that lost it all. But for those that have managed to
hang on to their homes, there is at least one thing we can
do to get a boot strap pull up that has the possibilities
for ramifications that far exceed our own personal concerns.
I know that this will sound very cliché but it will
require you to spend money on your existing home. What I am
about to outline is simple yet complex in nature and will
hold true for home that are 10 years old or older. 90% of
the homes that were lost to the economic crisis were new
homes, or homes less than ten years old. It was those homes
that generally got caught up in the bad banking and
scandalous financial and financing system. Do some checking
on your own, and you will find this to be true.
So why spend money now, when things look so bad? The
short term reasons and results are simple. But the long
reaching implications of doing this now could and most
probably will have significant impact on our ailing economy,
if a great enough number of people follow suit.
It is probably a fact that you lost at least some of the
value in your home to the depressed home market. And even if
you were one of the very few extremely lucky people who were
all but untouched by the drop in the housing market this
plan still holds great value for you.
So what is the plan? Simply put new replacement windows.
There is nothing I know of or that can be easily proven
which will add more value to existing home structures then
upgrading windows and or doors. It has long been a fact that
replacing existing windows and doors will boost a home’s
marketable value when done properly.
I truly don't believe there are many that would argue the
previous point. If you are a home owner, you inevitably know
how sound the philosophy is. What you may not know is how
truly sound the idea is for today’s economy. You may not
have a full picture of the far reaching affects that the
simple act of adding new replacement windows can have.
Few if any products will have the home based
manufacturing infrastructure that replacement windows have.
From the materials used right down to the labor force used
in the manufacturing process, the greatest majority of what
it takes to produce today’s residential windows in produced
right here at home.
Think about it for just a moment, what does it take to
build a window? Well for vinyl windows, it takes polyvinyl
carbonate, although some of the oil used might be imported,
the process to refine it and to extract the materials needed
to manufacture the polyvinyl carbonate are done right here
at home, creating jobs in the petrochemical field. The same
holds true for aluminum windows, the aluminum is mined here,
produced here and used here at home creating jobs in several
different fields such as the mining industry and in other
types of manufacturing.
The wood for wood windows is a home grown material
processed here, harvested here, and consumed locally. This
creates jobs in the lumber and timber products industry as
well as others. Even the silica sand used to produce the
different types of glass used in replacement windows is a
home produced product coming from mining and dredging
operations locally.
I won’t stick my neck out and say that all the materials
and labor used to produce new windows is 100% home grown,
because we all know this would be untrue. Some of the mass
produced hardware and parts are probably still produced
overseas, but in fact there is no reason they couldn’t be
produced locally, and given the state of the economy doing
so might not be a bad choice to consider.
But all in all, the materials, labor and technology to
produce windows for your home are produced right here at
home, creating jobs, stimulating the economy which is
exactly what we need in this county to get us back on track.
Because new replacement windows are produced in regional
factories, using to the greatest degree possible, local
labor forces and home grown or produced raw materials, they
serve as a great stimulus to our overall economy without
sacrificing much, if any to outside forces.
So adding new replacement windows to your home not only
adds value to your home, doing so aids our national economy
by helping to supplying jobs in many areas. New replacement
windows may be one of the greatest stimuli our country could
possibly have. Not many if any other industry or product can
match them for the percentage of nationalism when it comes
to materials and labor used in production. No other product
has the ability to stimulate the economy in such a
nationalistic manner while at the same time put vital
dollars in the areas of our economy that are needed the
most.
Furthermore this one act of installing new window
replacements will save energy for the country, helping to
cut down on green house gasses, lowering our dependence on
foreign oil while at the same time improving the value of
your home.
Name one other product or service that can have as much
positive results for our country, for our economy here at
home. One that can impact positively as many areas of what
our country needs to recover as does installing new
replacement windows. I’m betting you can’t think of even one
that can come close. I know I can’t.