If you’re looking to sell your home in the near future, you may be considering updates to your property in order to increase its value. While the most value-boosting home projects tend to be large kitchen and bathroom renovations, there are simpler things you can do to appeal to prospective buyers without breaking the bank.
One simple project is a fresh layer of paint. The question is, what colors should you use to appeal to buyers? According to a recent Zillow survey, the color in each room not only impacts whether someone will buy a home, but it also impacts how much they’ll pay for it. Here are four paint colors to use in each room that will increase the value of your house and entice those buyers to pay even more.
Paint your living room an unassuming gray
The living room is one of the first rooms potential buyers see, whether they’re browsing your listing on an app or walking into the home for an open house. It’s a space that families use for lounging, entertaining, and simply living, as the name implies, so buyers want to envision their own life in the living room. If this space is painted with bright, bold, or daring colors, the chance that it won’t match someone else’s style is much higher, and buyers will find it difficult to picture themselves in your home. When surveyed, people tended to prefer an unassuming gray color in the living room, and they were willing to pay more for that home over others.
Paint your kitchen classic white
The kitchen gets a lot of use, so it’s an important room. Every quick breakfast, casual lunch, and holiday dinner is prepared in the kitchen, so it has to be appealing to prospective buyers. When it comes to painting the kitchen, a classic white color takes the cake. Not only does white paint give a crisp and clean feel, which is important in the room where food is prepared, but it also reflects natural light, making the space look more spacious and inviting. The survey found that buyers were much more interested in homes that had a clean, white kitchen.
Paint your bedroom a bold, dark blue
People view the bedroom as a space that can handle a bit of creative decorating since it’s a more private room where boldness and unique style is encouraged. Where certain bold colors like pink, purple, red, and yellow are a bit too extreme and could be viewed as too feminine, a dark or bold blue color hit the spot for prospective buyers who were surveyed. The color matches with light or dark furniture, various styles of decorating, and lots of different types of bedding, so buyers can easily picture themselves heading off to bed in the soothing but bold blue-colored bedroom.
Paint your bathroom light blue
A bold and colorful bathroom may seem like a great idea, but as it turns out, buyers aren’t impressed with such cheery bathrooms, and they tended to prefer ones with lighter, softer colors. Since bathrooms are often small, cramped, and lacking in natural light, a light color makes them seem brighter, cleaner, and more spacious. Light blue took first place in the preferred bathroom color for prospective buyers, with some willing to pay up to $5,000 more for those homes overall.
Which paint colors should you avoid?
Loud and bright colors, while gorgeous to some people, don’t appeal to everyone, so in any room that’s being repainted, avoid colors like bright red, green, yellow, or purple. When you’re selling your home, you want buyers to be able to picture themselves living in your house. For this reason, you want to choose paint colors that match a variety of decorating styles and appeal to the highest number of prospective buyers. This is why so many neutral colors are chosen when updating homes that are going on the market.
When it comes to living in your home, you should paint your walls whatever colors bring you joy and comfort. However, when you’re looking to sell your home, the highest priority is making sure your home’s value is at its peak. Homes with wild or daring colors on the walls tend to be avoided by prospective buyers, which means you may have to settle on a price lower than you’d like for your home. Painting is a great way to bump up your home’s appeal without the cost of a full renovation, and with the four colors on our list, buyers will be lining up to offer the highest bids they can for your house.
