Cost vs Value 2025 · East North Central
Garage Door Replacement Returned 282% in the Midwest. Here’s What That Number Hides
It is a real figure from a real report, and it is the best ROI of any home improvement project tracked. It is also one of the most widely misunderstood statistics in this trade, and I sell garage doors for a living.
The number, stated straight
The 2025 Cost vs Value Report, produced by Zonda and published on JLC Online (it used to be Remodeling magazine’s), analyzed 28 remodeling projects. Nationally, garage door replacement averaged a job cost of $4,672 against an estimated resale value of $12,507, giving 268% of cost recouped. That ranked first of all 28 projects, and first in every one of the nine U.S. regions.
Our region does better than the national figure. East North Central covers Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, and there the same project came in at $4,357 cost, $12,298 resale value, and 282.2% recouped. Middle Atlantic and New England both cleared 300%.
A 165-point climb in three years
This is where a careful reader should start frowning.
| Report year | National job cost | Cost recouped |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | $4,302 | 103% |
| 2024 | $4,513 | 193% |
| 2025 | $4,672 | 268% |
Job cost rose $370 in three years, about 8.6%. Recouped value rose 165 percentage points, which is to say the estimated resale value roughly two and a half times over the same period. Materials did not change. The doors did not change. Nothing about the physical product moved anywhere near that fast.
Something else moved instead, and understanding what it was is the whole point of this article.
What the report actually measures
Cost vs Value is not transaction data. Nobody tracked a set of houses, gave half of them new garage doors, and compared the sale prices. The resale figures come from a survey: real-estate professionals are asked what they believe a given improvement would add to a home’s sale price in their market. The cost figures come from construction-cost estimating for a defined project spec.
So the report is a careful, useful, well-constructed measure of professional opinion about perceived value. It is not a measure of money that changed hands. When ROI leaps 165 points in three years while costs barely move, what has really shifted is how a large group of agents feel about curb appeal, in a market where buyers have been unusually sensitive to how a house presents in its listing photos.
Why I am telling you this
Because every door company in the country is currently putting “268% ROI!” on a landing page, and a homeowner who spends four thousand dollars expecting a twelve-thousand-dollar return has been misled by an industry that should know better. The report is good. The way it gets quoted is not.
What 282% does not mean
It does not mean a $4,357 door adds $12,298 of cash to your closing statement. Nobody has demonstrated that, and the report does not claim it. Resale value in this context is a professional estimate of contribution to sale price, made in the abstract, before an appraiser, a buyer’s agent and a home inspector have had a look at your particular house.
It also does not mean the return is independent of everything else. If your roof is failing and your driveway is cracked, a new garage door does not carry the elevation on its own. What agents are describing when they rate this project so highly is a first impression: the door is the single largest, most immediately visible thing a buyer sees, and replacing a dented, rust-bottomed, mismatched one removes an obvious deduction from the mental price a buyer forms in the first ten seconds.
That is a genuine effect. It is just not a bank transfer.
The door in the report is not the door in your quote
Here is the detail almost nobody quoting the headline has read. Cost vs Value models one specific project: a 16 × 7 four-section door, thermally insulated, on new heavy-duty galvanized steel tracks, with high-tensile-strength galvanized steel hinges. That is an upscale specification with all new hardware, installed by a professional, with the old door removed.
Compare that with HomeAdvisor’s national installation figures, which put the average garage door installation at $1,230, with a typical range of $754 to $1,707. By size: one-car openings $500 to $3,000, two-car $800 to $5,000, three-car $1,400 to $7,200.
Those two datasets are not in conflict. They are measuring different things. HomeAdvisor is averaging every garage door job in America, including single-layer steel doors on existing track. Zonda is costing one deliberately upscale build. Put $4,357 and $1,230 side by side without that explanation and you have either scared a homeowner off or set them up for a nasty surprise, depending on which way round you did it.
How to read any ROI claim
Ask three questions. Is the resale figure measured or surveyed? What exact specification was priced? And does the cost include removal, new track and new hardware, or just a door hung on whatever is already on the wall? If a company cannot answer those, the number on their page is decoration.
What is solidly true
Strip out the forecasting and a lot of durable fact remains.
The door is most of what people see. DASMA notes that garage doors have traditionally occupied around 30% of a home’s front elevation, and on many modern homes exceed 50%. On a 1970s two-car attached garage in this village, it is a large share of the facade whether or not anyone has surveyed an agent about it.
Almost every buyer here has a garage. The U.S. Department of Energy, working from the 2017 American Housing Survey, reports that 66% of occupied U.S. housing units had a garage or carport, rising to 81% of owner-occupied homes, with the Midwest at 75% or above. A garage is not a differentiator around here. A bad garage door is.
The local market is owner-occupied and mature. Census QuickFacts puts Arlington Heights at 74.0% owner-occupied with a median home value of $414,500, and the median local home was built in 1974. Owner-occupiers replace doors. Fifty-year-old housing stock needs them replaced. Both of those are facts about your street, not opinions about a market.
What to specify, and why
The right door depends on which job you are actually doing, and the two jobs are not the same.
If you are replacing to sell
Spend on what photographs and what a buyer touches. Get the style right for the house — a carriage-house look on a mid-century ranch reads as a mistake, not an upgrade. Match the trim and window pattern to the front door. Take the new track and new hardware, because a smooth, quiet door during a showing does more than a spec sheet ever will. Insulation matters less for a sale than most brochures suggest, and where you do care about it, ask for the U-factor rather than the R-value, for the reasons set out in our piece on why R-value is the wrong number to shop on.
If you are replacing to live with it
Reverse the priorities. Buy cycle life in the springs, nylon rollers on sealed bearings, and struts across the back of a wide section. Buy insulation if the garage is attached to living space, a workshop, or your children’s bedroom above. Buy a quiet opener with a belt drive if it sits under a bedroom, which is a separate line on the quote and worth it. None of that shows in a listing photo, and all of it shows every single morning.
One thing applies to both: do not reuse old track. DASMA is explicit that track compatibility depends on door thickness, weight and headroom, and a new door hung on 1974 track is a door that will be back on our schedule. That is also why a full door installation costs more than a straight swap, and why we quote it that way.
If the current door is sound and the problem is one dented section, say so and we will price panel replacement instead. We do not work on commission on parts, which is the only reason that sentence is in this article. Have a look at the residential doors we fit, or tell us what you have and we will tell you honestly which of the two jobs you are doing.
Dale Whitmore
Owner & Lead Technician
Founded this business in 2011 after fifteen years fitting doors across the northwest suburbs. He would rather lose a sale than quote a statistic he cannot explain.
Straight answers
Questions about the ROI figure
Will a new garage door really add $12,298 to my sale price?
No, and the report does not say it will. That figure is what surveyed real-estate professionals estimate the improvement contributes to resale value in their market, not a measured increase in sale prices. Treat it as evidence that agents rate curb appeal very highly, and as a reason to fix an ugly door before listing, rather than as a forecast.
Why is the report’s job cost so much higher than typical quotes?
Because it prices one upscale specification: a 16 by 7 four-section insulated door with new heavy-duty galvanized track and high-tensile galvanized hinges, professionally installed with the old door removed. HomeAdvisor’s national average of $1,230 covers every job in the country, including basic single-layer doors reusing existing hardware. Different projects, different numbers.
Did the return really jump from 103% to 268% in two years?
That is what the published reports show, and it is exactly why the figure should be handled carefully. Job costs rose only $370 over that period, so the movement is in surveyed opinion about resale value, not in anything physical. A number capable of moving 165 points in two years is not a precise financial forecast.
Does the Midwest figure apply to Arlington Heights specifically?
Only broadly. The 282.2% figure is for East North Central, which pools Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. It is closer to home than the national number and worth knowing, but it is not a village-level or ZIP-level result. Local factors — the age of the housing stock, what the neighboring houses look like — matter more.
Is it worth replacing a door that still works, purely for resale?
Sometimes. If the door is dented, rust-blistered at the bottom, or obviously mismatched with the house, it is a visible deduction and worth fixing before listing. If it is plain but sound, a service, new rollers and a repaint of the trim usually get most of the visual benefit for a fraction of the outlay. We will tell you which one you are looking at.
Get the specification, not just the price
We measure the opening, check the headroom and put the whole scope in writing.