There are many factors that can determine how much a house is worth. Is the home in a good neighborhood? Does the home require lots of repairs? What does the landscaping look like? What does the home itself look like? When a potential buyer sees a photograph online, that first impression can be very important. One of the most important factors to making that good first impression turns out to be the color of the house itself. To many people, this is common sense, but you would be surprised how many people might ignore the possibility of changing the color. Everyone has a favorite color, but sometimes using that favorite color to paint your house can be a big mistake.
Colors have a strong impact on everything, especially when it comes to marketing. Some colors can have a general effect of portraying disgust, fear, and sadness, while others can give a feeling of joy, trust, and warmth. If you do a simple online search for “the psychology of color”, you can find countless examples of how colors can affect a person’s mood.
I came across a discussion online about a home that was never sold. It was first listed at $150,000 and eventually the price dropped all the way down to $90,000. The building was in great condition and there were no repairs needed. What was the color of the home? Purple. When you do an online search for the color purple and the moods it can portray, you will come across loathing, boredom, and disgust. If a potential buyer walks up to the house or sees a photo of it, there is barely a chance of making a sale.
This person online, however, saw the potential that this house had and purchased it for the $90,000 asking price. He decided to paint the house a soft yellow color, which can convey a feeling of joy and serenity, according to many studies on color. What was the result? He was able to resell the house for $160,000 almost instantly. Potential homebuyers were no longer reluctant to approach the house, and instead felt drawn to it. One interesting statistic is that homes painted yellow tend to sell the fastest. It’s personally not my favorite color, but that shouldn’t matter if your primary goal is to sell the home quickly for the highest price.
Fortunately, yellow isn’t the only color that can help sell houses. Popular color choices that tend to sell well are taupe, which is a color that is a blend between brown and gray. Tan and other sandy colors can also help portray warmth and give a feeling of traditional values. In regards to colors that don’t sell well, such as purple and orange, sometimes those colors can be appealing to a specific mindset, but if your goal is to attract the largest pool of potential homebuyers, those colors should be avoided.
Another factor to consider when picking a color is to look at all of the surrounding houses in the neighborhood. If every house in the neighborhood falls into a specific color scheme, it would be best to not try to break from it too much. Even if you pick a great color, it won’t matter so much if it sticks out like a sore thumb and appears to be an eye sore compared to all of the surrounding houses. Most of the time, picking the right color can easily be narrowed down to what looks great in the area around you.
Once you do finally commit to a specific color, remember that it only plays a minor role with the sale of the house. You have to factor the color choices on the interior walls once you finally attract a potential buyer to finally enter the home. It’s normally best to stick with white, tan, and soft shades of various colors, while avoiding colors that are too dark. Once you come across a perfect balance of color from the inside and out, you might be surprised how much your luck can change with selling your home!
Selling a house isn’t always easy. Sometimes you will do everything right and still have no luck. It requires a lot of patience and can take up a lot of your time. If you need to sell your house fast and can no longer afford to keep waiting, give me a call and I’ll do my very best to help in any way I can.
