After a lot of time and thought, you’ve decided that you’re going to sell your home; congratulations! It’s an exciting time but can also be exhausting and anxiety-inducing.
You’ve no doubt decorated your home to suit your tastes. But will those tastes suit potential buyers? And if they don’t, what will? Should you be painting the interior walls with neutral colors? Or would something more trendy be appropriate?
These are all questions that can be nerve-wracking for the homeowner to try and navigate on their own; it’s overwhelming to know where to start.
Homeowners sometimes feel like they’re wading through a veritable battlefield of home decor options, trying to find the perfect home look to lure prospective buyers into their homes.
The good news is that you’re not alone; there are a lot of resources out there to help you maximize your home value with simple DIY fixes.
One of the best ways to increase homes value is to carefully select interior paint colors to will suit your home’s atmosphere.
Don’t worry; we’ll walk you through the best colors to paint rooms for resale (and the worst). Picking the right paint colors for your makeover is easier than you think.
Best Colors to Paint Rooms for Resale
You may love the colors you’ve chosen for your living room, dining room, and even the front door. But those paint colors were personalized ones selected by you; potential homebuyers will be looking at your home with a different set of eyes.
They’re not interested in your tastes but in how your home could be transformed into their home. With that in mind, the general rule is to stick with neutral colors.
Neutral color schemes are a safe choice for curb appeal when refreshing your exterior paint color and your home’s interior.
Color of the Year — Greige
We’ve got you if you haven’t heard of this color trend. It’s essentially just beige plus gray—that’s it!
Adding gray to beige helps make the traditionally warm neutral color a little cooler. And the beige helps make gray a bit warmer than it might typically be. It’s a genuinely versatile paint color that fits into many homes.
Not quite beige, it’s an agreeable gray that works well with entryways and can even compliment the occasional pop of bright white.
Worst Colors to Paint Rooms for Resale
It’s time, and you’re standing in a Benjamin Moore or a Sherwin-Williams paint store and looking at a dizzying amount of color palettes.
Let’s start with the colors you could use on those interior walls.
Interior Walls
Navy blue? Stop with that dark blue; that is not the paint color you want to choose for your dining room.
You might be thinking that it’s going to have a stately or sophisticated appeal to potential buyers. But the reality is that dark or bright colors can distract from the home look you’re attempting to go for.
Stick to neutral tones with the occasional pop of color or accent wall to bring it together. There’s nothing wrong with accent colors, but you don’t want to paint an entire room neon. They should highlight and draw attention to the features you want a buyer to notice, but they shouldn’t be the whole room.
As much as you might have enjoyed the bright yellow kitchen, research suggests buyers won’t like it nearly as much. Unfortunately, it may even lead to them offering less money to buy your home!
Exterior Paint Colors
When looking at your home’s exterior, it’s tempting to throw a fresh coat of paint onto it. But you’re going to want to avoid the following paint colors when you do.
Off-White
In theory, off-white should be a great choice because it fits right into the scheme of neutral paint colors. But you’ll want to be picky here because of those sometimes unpleasant undertones.
You might be better off with an eggshell or light gray tone instead. A bright white might also work, but you want to avoid anything that might look dingy.
Dark Brown
This dark paint color isn’t a popular choice for the interior or exterior of your home. Potential buyers will view your real estate as drab and may even think that you’re using that dark color to hide flaws.
An alternative might be a lighter version of this shade; tans and beiges are often more appealing.
Terracotta
It turns out that orange is one of the least favorite colors in the world. It’s an excellent color for a pot in your garden, but it shouldn’t be the exterior of your home.
You should also avoid it inside because it can be overwhelming. It might serve best as an accent color, but you want to avoid using it as a solid wall color.
Dark Grays
Like off-white, this falls into the neutral paint colors. But it’s simply too dark. Your real estate agent may be better able to advise you here, but your best bet would be to choose a light gray or maybe a pale blue.
Why Neutral Tones Are a Safe Bet
Neutral tones can be some of the best paint colors. And as a general rule, they’re the safest. You’ll want your house to appear like a blank slate to homebuyers, and neutral color palettes or trendy colors like greige, pale blue, and cream add to your home value.
Bright white can be great for bedrooms, bathrooms, and exteriors. Cream is suitable for kitchens, living rooms, and bedrooms. Pale blue is an excellent choice for bathrooms and bedrooms. And greige is appropriate for living rooms, bedrooms and exteriors.
Anything too bold or too dark might distract a potential buyer from seeing your house as their future home; you want them to be able to imagine living there.
According to Better Homes and Gardens, these colors can increase a home’s selling value. While choosing bold colors throughout your home can decrease marketability and value.
For example, they state that bright red and yellow kitchens sold for less money than kitchens with a cooler color palette.
A fresh coat of paint on your walls is one of the easiest DIY home improvements you can make to increase the value of your home.
And with a wide range of neutral colors out there, you should be able to find something that will give your home a fresh look that potential homebuyers are expecting.
Why Should You Repaint Your House for Resale
It’s been a seller’s market for the last year, but that doesn’t mean homeowners can skimp up on basic home improvements before attempting to sell. While painting will have some sort of cost, it’s a pretty simple way to increase your home value before selling.
Now that the market is evening out again, buyers are less willing to make concessions. If your home has an old paint job, or it looks like they will need to re-paint most of the house right after buying? They may go with someone thing less expensive or more to their tastes.
There’s also the fact that curb appeal is one of those things that get buyers into your home’s door to view it. If your house looks drab and outdated, they’ll likely skip over your place entirely.
Updating your exterior paint will give your home a significant facelift and possibly increase the overall selling price of your house.
There are several other ways to increase your home’s value, but simply repainting is among the easiest and doesn’t require any particular skill.
A real estate agent can help you navigate some of the best ways to increase your home value, but if you’re planning on doing it yourself, there are ways of selling a house without a realtor.
Final Thoughts
Selling your home can be a stressful process! But it doesn’t have to be, at least not when it comes to paint colors.
You might even find that attempting to sell your home through a property investment company that allows you to sell without jumping through all of the hoops selling through a traditional real estate agent might.
If that option suits you, you’re in luck because here at Tiffany Property Investments, we buy houses North Carolina homeowners want to part with.
Some homeowners find that going the traditional route of selling their home through a real estate agent or even on their own can be more stressful than it’s worth.
Finding a company willing to pay you a fair price for your home can be a relief. Our experienced team can help you sell a house fast in Charlotte and we have cash home buyers in Belmont as well.
Whatever you decide to choose for your home selling experience, repainting your home before putting it on the market is a solid and common sense decision. It can be tough to redecorate and make your home feel less like “yours,” but you’ll find it a worthwhile investment.
Hopefully, you feel more confident in selecting the best colors to paint rooms for resale. Stores like Behr, Sherwin Williams, Benjamin Moore, and Farrow & Ball are all fantastic paint companies that offer a wide variety of paint and home design services.
If you’re feeling stuck and need help finding something appropriate for the market, they’ll be able to help you find the neutral color palette that’s best for your home.