Professional color consultants advise that whether you’re planning to sell your home in the immediate future or not for many years, you can significantly increase its salability by choosing both your exterior and interior colors wisely.
Contrarily, the wrong interior or exterior colors can make your home more difficult to sell, because prospective buyers might be unable to imagine it in alternative colors, or because they don’t want to add the cost of new paint to their impending moving and closing expenses.
Exteriors
If you live in a neighborhood, your home’s exterior color should be chosen so it’s complimented by surrounding houses. While having the only bright green house might appeal to your unique sense of aesthetics and avant-gardism, your prospective buyers will probably have more conventional taste and—being new to the neighborhood—prefer to maintain a lower profile.
Of course, you have more leeway if your home sits alone “in the country.” But green doesn’t go with everything: you still must take into account your property’s trees, shrubs, and other foliage. Otherwise your house might clash with nature, which is not exactly a selling feature. Think earth tones for bucolic settings: browns, tans, grays, greens, oranges, and darker reds.
Also, the integral design elements of your home are important factors. The predominant colors you choose must compliment those of the roof, stonework, bricks, and other architectural features. The majesty of a colonial-style home is complimented with exterior white. Contrarily, ranch-style homes achieve greater visual interest with more and contrasting colors.
Living-rooms
Careful choice of living-room colors can help you sell your home. Your prospective buyers will likely own furniture, which they will not want to replace or refinish to accommodate any unusual or bold living room palettes. At least not right away. Nonetheless, it pays to be a little stylish.
While white might go with everything, it’s not particularly warm or inviting. Creamy whites, muted beiges, and light gray tones provide more character than plain white—as well as neutrality and warmth.
Well-chosen neutrals can evoke a room’s potential inside the mind of prospective buyers relative to their own tastes and predilections. Contrarily, outlandish or otherwise polarizing colors can be deal-killers by preventing prospects from imagining the space other than the way it is.
Kitchens
Kitchens are a place where many tasks are performed: slicing, dicing, chopping, and sometimes even crafts and homework. Also, you can’t tell if something’s “rare,” “medium,” or “well-done” in the dark. So most prospective buyers are happiest with the brightest kitchen.
This means you should paint your kitchen in bright colors because they reflect light while adding color: pale yellows, light olives, and warm beiges for example. Avoid darker shades, which absorb rather than reflect light.
Nevertheless, stay away from plain white. Although it’s undeniably best at reflecting light, it can make your kitchen seem sterile, cold, and uninviting. Such an “institutional” feel will rob your home of its emotional warmth, which depreciates its salability.
Bedrooms
Most people don’t consider bedrooms as showcases, so there’s little need for outré colors or trendy looks—at least for the purposes of salability. Instead, look to milder tones such as eggshell whites; beiges; and lighter grays, yellows, and olives.
Bathrooms
Bathrooms tend to be relatively small in older homes, which can discourage prospective buyers. So the trick is to use colors that emphasize space, such as warm whites. Avoid deep reds, browns, yellows, or blues. They make small rooms seem even smaller.
Did you know?
Genesis Painting of Madison now offers free color consultation services to its customers for both their indoor and outdoor projects. The company has hired Laurie Lundgren, a professional artist, muralist, and color consultant with 18 years experience providing services in the Madison area.
Genesis Painting has received the Angie’s List® Super Service Award three consecutive years: 2010 and 2011 and 2012.