Selling a House? Use These Paint Colors to Attract Buyers
Selling a House? Use These Paint Colors to Attract Buyers
Whether selling a home is your full-time business or part-time hustle — in the United States, the average time a house sits on the market is around 25 days. The longer your home stays unoccupied, the more power the buyers will have when it’s time to make negotiations. As the seller, you’d want your house to sell as fast as possible to avoid losing a piece of the value.
Use These Paint Colors to Attract Buyers
One of the best and cost-effective ways to drive value up is by changing or ramping up your home’s color. However, you must approach the idea with caution. Buyer’s preferences are now stronger than ever. Home colors have become a vital consideration in their home buying journey. With that, it’s important to lean on the safe side when it comes to choosing the color of the house you’re about to put up on sale.
Why Should You Repaint Your Home Before Selling?
When it comes to selling a home, the simple tactic of repainting can make a big difference in your home’s appearance and value. Repainting your home makes it look fresher and newer. Here are five other reasons why you should consider repainting your home before selling:
1. Inconsistent Colors
Inconsistent colors inside a home significantly downgrade its appeal to buyers. Having different colors in each room, especially darker shades, could make the buyers feel stuffy and make the room smaller than it actually is. Repainting will help give the room the right colors it needs to attract buyers into it.
Realtors and designers advise using neutral colors for your home’s interior. White, beige, and grey colors, specifically, are excellent choices. It makes a room look virtually larger and helps brighten up shadowy areas in the home.
2. Give Home a Fresh and Clean Look
One of the first things that buyers usually look for in a home is cleanliness. Repainting will add a clean feeling to the house because it masks any stains and dirt that might have accumulated through the years. Painting your walls also brightens up the room, therefore attracting more interest in your home.
3. Modernize Your Home
Old paint colors, cabinets, and linoleum floors can make your home look outdated. Simple improvement touches like repainting the cabinets and walls with white or beige can transform your home’s whole look.
4. Fix Peeling Paint
Over time, paint could start to crack and peel. Though it may look minor for the owners, these issues could be a big deal to buyers. As much as possible, repair these cracks and peels before selling. You can fix it through spackling. However, if the damage is bigger, you could hire a handyman to install new drywall before applying primer and a fresh coat of paint.
5. Most Homebuyers Prefer Repainted Homes
Although this might not apply to anyone, most homebuyers prefer buying newly painted homes. The main reason for this is simple: it takes one task off the long list of things to do once they move in. Unless the buyers are looking for a fixer-upper home, repainting your house will make it look brand new, which can be more attractive to potential buyers.
Best Paint Colors to Sell a House
Whether you’re looking to improve your home’s appearance to sell it quicker or changing its color to increase its market value, we have some tips for you. Here are some of the best paint colors for selling a house:
Kitchen
Remodeling your kitchen is one of the biggest factors that can affect the value of your home. The kitchen is where all the magic happens. With all the time families spend there, it’s clear why it needs to be one of the most beautiful parts of the home. If you’re working on a limited budget, a little repainting can go a long way. According to a study Zillow conducted, using brick or barn red paint on kitchens can lead to at least a $ 2,000 drop in your home’s value.
Instead of going for those colors, consider these paint colors in your kitchen:
- White
When choosing a neutral color for spaces like kitchens, shades of white are usually a common choice. However, it must be noted that not all shades of white will look suitable for the kitchen. For instance, a stark white can make a space look clinical, like those in medical facilities. Off-whites can also give off the same vibe, especially if they have a yellow undertone.
Soft cream could be a suitable choice for kitchens that receives a lot of light. You can also choose white shades with gray undertones, like Benjamin Moore Super White or Oxford White paint.
- Greige
Kitchens can be one of the most challenging areas to decorate because most of the colors will come from the kitchen cabinets, floors, and countertops. Greige is better than choosing gray or beige for your kitchen because it brings out both the beauty of both in one color. The beige gives the kitchen warmth, while gray gives off the neutral tone in the space. Greige bridges the gap between warm and neutral.
Greige is also a perfect choice for homes that need a more modern appearance. Once done, it gives the kitchens of even the most modest dwellings a high-end and modernized look.
- Taupe
Essentially, taupe is described as a light brown color with a white undertone. Taupe is the color that results from adding cream to your black coffee. You can also describe it as a grayish-brown color.
Taupe is excellent for kitchens because it’s considered a soft earthy hue that gives the area a cohesive look. Aside from that, taupe is generally a universal paint color because it lets you add color to the area (aside from taupe) without allowing the mix of colors to be overwhelming. The color also pairs well with stained wood cabinets should your kitchen have it.
Some taupes have a pinkish or yellowish tone — so, as with any color — identify your taupe tone.
Bedrooms
Bedrooms should be a place that fosters rest and relaxation. It’s also the area where you start each day. With that, it’s perfectly reasonable as to why you should use the best colors to paint it. Here are the colors you can use:
- White
For people looking for a timeless look, white is always the best way to go. An all-white bedroom not only gives off a fresh look, but it can also foster a serene and calm atmosphere making the dwellers relaxed and calm – all the things you need to feel when you wake up in the morning or after a nap. Besides that, painting your home white also lets you layer different colors easily to create an interesting look.
Moreover, going with white paint is the most common trick of making a room look bigger and more spacious.
- Taupe
Whether your home’s design is traditional or leaning into the mid-century look, painting your walls with taupe is definitely a great choice. This is because taupe is a sophisticated and versatile color. It’s easy to pair up with the different furniture inside the bedroom, including your bed.
As with other colors, taupe comes in different shades, and not all can be a good fit for a bedroom. In general, a cooler shade of taupe works well with both vintage and modern homes. Taupe with green undertones, specifically, can add a calming and soothing feeling to the room, which makes it an excellent choice for bedrooms.
Living Area
A living room is one of the areas in your house that makes it a home. It’s the area where you receive your visitors and spend a lot of time with your family. With that, the living room needs to give out an inviting atmosphere.
Here are some of the best colors you can use:
- White
Whenever you’re in doubt of what paint color best fits your living room, opt to go all white. It gives the homebuyers a sense that they’re starting a new life in a new house on a clean slate. Plus, aside from making the room look bigger, it also maintains a fresh, clean, and brighter look.
White is also a great choice if you’re looking for some versatility. White blends well with other colors, making it easier for homeowners to choose the decorations for their living room. For instance, with white walls and ceilings, you can easily select beige furniture or go for bright-colored things to decorate in the area.
- Beige
If you’re not so keen on going all white, beige is another color to consider. Beige creates a relaxed and inviting look for your living room. Not to mention, it’s a great color to use for people who are looking for a minimalistic-looking home.
White paint absorbs a lot of sunlight if the living room is receiving a lot of it. Beige, on the other hand, doesn’t absorb as much light as white. But it reflects enough natural light to ensure that the room is well-lit and cozy.
- Gray
Gray is also becoming more and more popular as the new go-to neutral for many homeowners. Although it’s a good fit for almost every room in the house, it’s mainly a good paint color for the living room. Gray walls give a room a classic and elegant look and make it easier for new homeowners to decorate their living area since the color matches with almost any type of furniture – be it modern or vintage.
Gray gives a warm and inviting look to a living room and could also help make a room look larger and spacious. It’s the reason why a lot of interior designers are looking favorably at it for homes – even theirs. You can also add a burst of color to your living room by using a deeper shade of gray as an accent.
Bathrooms
Bathrooms can be a very personal space. As much as possible, you’d want to feel and look clean, serene, and calming, just like when you’re at a spa. Here are the colors that will help get your house off the market faster:
- Pale and Light Blue
Many think that using blue can be risky. However, realtors and interior designers actually recommend using this color as the primary shade in your bathroom. Pale and light blue colors are great for bathrooms because it gives off a spa-like feeling. Blue is a perfect match for white bathroom tiles and white cabinets.
Fun fact: A study conducted by Zillow reveals that bathrooms with a lighter blue hue are more likely to increase a home’s value by $ 5,000 and more. That’s reason enough to convince sellers to change their bathrooms’ color into lighter shades of blue.
- Creamy White
If you’re not a fan of bright white color for your bathroom, consider the creamy white paint instead. A creamy white wall color gives off some warmth to cold bathrooms. You can also pair it up easily with accent colors like light pink, lavender, or something darker. It’s a classic color, but definitely not a boring one.
Exterior
One of the highlights of your home is your curb appeal. When people look for a house to buy, most of the time, the first thing that they will see is the exterior. From there, they will decide whether they’ll have a look inside or not. Read on to see what paint colors will attract the attention of buyers:
- Neutral Colors
Neutral colors like beige, ivory, gray, and shades of white are generally kind to the eyes. When homebuyers see that, especially when it’s painted cleanly, there’s a big chance that they will be curious to see what’s inside the home. Neutral colors also provide a neutral backdrop, which allows homebuyers to picture themselves living in the house. White also creates a bright and welcoming atmosphere that definitely helps when it comes to selling a home.
- Greige
A combination of beige and grey, Greige has also become a popular home exterior color for homes because of its sophisticated look. The combination of the colors makes the exterior of the house look elegant and exciting. Its grayish shade also gives off a classic look making a home more appealing to the buyers.
- Soft Brown
Warm, earthy colors like soft brown on the exterior can give the home a warm atmosphere. It blends and matches well with nature and can easily be emphasized with the landscaping of a home. The green foliage or a well-groomed and maintained lawn can bring out the home’s color, which can make your house stand out and catch the interest of potential home buyers.
Quick Tips When Painting Your Home
Slapping a new coat of paint is the best way to restore the beauty of your house – inside and out. In fact, painting is an inexpensive home improvement project that can lead to more than 100% ROI – given that you choose the right colors. Aside from selecting the best paint colors to sell a home, here are other quick tips to keep in mind to help you sell faster:
- Consider giving your door a little paint job, too. A paint analysis done by Zillow in 2018 shows that front doors painted with black or charcoal increased the home’s value by $ 6,271. Painting your door is the least expensive home improvement project that can generate thousands of ROI.
- Check the trends. Going with what’s currently the popular paint colors is one of the best ways to maximize your house’s appeal.
- Don’t forget to paint your roof when changing the color of your exterior. In general, light grey and white exterior match well with charcoal black roofs. On the other hand, brown and tan roofs are best paired with a beige or cream exterior.
- Talk to your real estate agent to help you figure out what other inexpensive home improvements you can make in your home to boost its value and increase its chances of getting sold. Also, since they have a lot of know-how regarding real estate, they’re one of the best people to talk to when deciding what paint colors you should use to sell your home.
Seal the Deal with the Best Paint Color for Your Home
Home selling can be one of the most challenging things you’ll have to do in your life, especially if you have little experience in it. Unless your home is well-maintained and regularly updated to match the current trends, it can be challenging to get your home off the market without making a small home improvement effort.
Even the simple task of repainting your walls can do wonders for both the pace of selling and increasing your home’s value. It will make the home look clean, fresh, and ready to move in, which will seal the deal for most home buyers.
Image Credit: taelynn Christopher; unsplash; thank you!
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