Paint colors that increase the value of your home.

Selling your house is a numbers game.

The more people that find your home appealing, the more likely you will fetch your asking price.

Lately, there has been a lot of press about how painting your front door black can up the sale price by $5,000 – here are more of our ideas on using certain paint colors to increase the value of your home.

Caveat:  If your home is in decent shape and painting won’t increase the value of your home by at least as much as it costs you to paint it, it’s not worth having it painted.

Colors must appeal to house buyers who are browsing online:

Since much of the legwork to find a home is done online, your walls should be painted in universally appealing colors that will “pop” on the screen to get more showings.

If buyers see paint colors they don’t like in an online virtual tour, they will choose not to tour the home.

You don’t want your home to be passed over because it has an orange accent wall when it’s so simple to appeal to more buyers online by painting over the orange with beige or gray.

Wall paint must appeal to home buyers the instant they enter your home:

The most important part of selling a home is how buyers feel when they’re in your home.

Because walls are the largest surface feature of a home, paint color significantly impacts the feeling a home gives a buyer.

Choosing paint colors that feel universally “calm” or “beautiful” can increase the number of people interested in the house.

Buyers can also visualize themselves in your home by choosing universally appealing colors (white kitchen, gray living room, light blue bathroom).

The more buyers can imagine themselves living in your home, the more showings and offers you’ll have.

Universally appealing paint colors to help sell your home:

Interior paint colors that sell homes:

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    White kitchens sell. Many kitchens remodeled twenty years ago using white cabinets still look fresh and modern today.

  • Repainting outdated oak or cherry kitchen cabinets is an instant refresh that many clients undertake before putting their homes on the market.
  • Once kitchen cabinets are updated with a coat of white paint, the whole house suddenly seems more contemporary —It’s a boost not only for the kitchen but that carries over to how the buyers feel in the rest of the home.

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    A light blue bathroom feels clean, even when it isn’t!  As with the white kitchen cabinets, painting a bathroom a color like Sherwin Williams’ Sea Salt can help people entering the room feel good. My kids’ bathroom is painted Sherwin Williams’ Sea Salt on purpose – it helps draw your attention from the globs of toothpaste in the sink and makes you “feel” like the kids’ bathroom is cleaner than it might be (ha!).

  • Ceilings:
    • Clean and paint over mold on bathroom ceilings before you show your home to buyers.
    • Fix leaks and paint over water stains on ceilings to prepare your home to sell.

Exact paint colors that appeal to home buyers:

Here are some colors that we have found to be universally appealing.  If you’re stumped, don’t go it alone – Kate is our complimentary color consultant who will help you choose colors that appeal to buyers.

• Living Rooms:  Sherwin Williams Modern Gray – a greige that looks great with many styles and furnishings.
• Kitchen cabinets:  Sherwin Williams Alabaster – a white that’s not too yellow. It is super-important that any white paint you choose could feel “dirty” in your lighting, as some white paints do.

Painting kitchen cabinets is the one investment that seems to carry over to the feeling of the whole home. If the cabinets are painted white, the house seems more modern and fresh.  The cost to paint your kitchen cabinets professionally in the Boston area is about $4-8,000.

• Bathroom: Sherwin Williams Sea Salt.
• Home office or small powder room:  This one might surprise you, but Sherwin Williams’ Mature Grape is a bold color that does not feel trendy.  In small doses, this deep purple looks both on-trend AND classic.

Exterior paint colors that sell homes:

You cannot exclude exterior paint when staging a home.

A buyer should feel welcome when driving up to your home and not be turned off by a bold or brash paint color.

Fortunately, most exteriors are already neutral in color.  Adding a few subtle paint touches, though, can make your home seem modern.

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  Paint your window trim and grids a darker color than the trim. 

• Change your front door color to something more modern.  Because you can paint your front door yourself with a $50 gallon of paint, changing the color to something fresh and modern instead of outdated works well.
• Giving your faded home one coat of exterior paint amps up the curb appeal.  Tell your painter that you’re selling your home and want minimal preparation to reduce the cost of painting it.
• Replace any rotted wood on your exterior, so it seems well-maintained.

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You also might like to read:

Can paint color make your space look cleaner?

Working with our free color consultant

Historical colors of the Boston-area

Roof color – the most important consideration when you choose an exterior paint color