The red front door adds a pop of personality to this Fan home. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Before you slap a new paint color on the walls of your home, take time to consider whether the color you choose will be a help or hindrance when you decide it’s time to sell.
You may want to individualize your kitchen, for example, by bathing it in lime green, but lime probably wouldn’t be an appetizing choice for most home buyers. In fact, it could turn them off completely.
“Homebuyers are looking for homes in which they can see themselves living,” says Realtor Jennie Dotts of Virginia Properties, a Long & Foster Company. “While paint colors aren’t among their criteria (along with square footage, price and number of bedrooms), aesthetics are essential to the lifestyle that is part of their search.”
If a home is too particular to an owner’s individual taste and style, “it may prevent others from envisioning themselves in the same space,” Dotts says. “Anything too offbeat, fussy or dull will appear to the buyer as just one more thing that needs to be fixed. In these turnkey times, it’s best to present an attractive blank slate for the next owner.”
Buyers see any extra work that has to be done such as painting as “a negative,” says Mark Cipoletti, a Realtor at Keller Williams, Richmond West. “People buying homes don’t want to do any work. Painting is not desirable to them.”
The pandemic radically altered the concept of home, “turning congenial environments with single-use rooms into private sanctuaries with multipurpose, borderless spaces,” Dotts says. “Gentle, welcoming colors — neutrals and earth tones — instill calmness and clarity. Rooms in this soft palette can be enlivened with colorful accent cushions, window treatments, or accessories — items the seller can take with them.”
The overall concept is to keep a neutral palette throughout house to create a flow that can be highlighted by pops of color on furniture and accessories. Homes with a different color in every room can be off-putting to a buyer.
Like songs, colors can evoke emotions, either good or bad.
“Yellow[, for example,] may add unwanted heat to a kitchen,” Dotts says. “Blue could be too restful for the lively occasions planned for the dining room. Avocado and turquoise might look smashing in a midcentury modern, yet frighten away buyers of a stately Greek Revival townhouse.”
The old design principle coined by the U.S. Navy in the 1960s of KISS — keep it simple, stupid — applies to the colors in your home. Avoid bright colors — such as yellow, red, green or pink.
When it comes to your home’s exterior, stick with white, cream or grey. “You don’t want anything too bright or overpowering,” Cipoletti says. “It’s a turnoff for folks. You can, however, add a pop of color to your door.”
Dotts advises her clients that “you’re only a paint can away from another color.
“Many people can’t see past what is in front of them,” she says. “The best advice I can offer sellers preparing a house for market is to stop thinking of it as personal extension of themselves. Think of the next owner and the best way to invite them in to fantasize a future for themselves there.”
