Home Selling: How to Make Your Paint Job Set Your Home Apart

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The consensus among knowledgeable real estate agents is clear: It's beneficial to repaint when preparing your home for sale. The right paint job can be a significant asset in showing your home to its best advantage. The wrong paint job can have the opposite effect, hindering your marketing efforts and possibly even deterring buyers who would otherwise be interested in your home. Let's take a look at some ways you can make your home's paint job work to your advantage when the time to sell is at hand.

White Is the Best Color to Choose When Repainting a Home for Sale

If the interior of your home is painted in a colorful palette, most realtors will advise you to repaint using nondescript white paint. While colorful walls can be beautiful, it's important for your prospective buyers to be able to imagine moving their furnishings into the space. If your existing paint colors clash with their belongings, that could limit your pool of interested buyers.

When you're repainting a home for the purpose of selling it, white paint is a smart investment because it matches everyone's furnishings effortlessly. Even if your potential buyers have zero imagination, they're likely to be able to easily envision their furnishings in your freshly white-walled home.

Even after you've made the decision to paint your walls white, several other important questions remain: Which white hue should you use? Should you use more than one color? What about trim colors? What about the ceiling?

The answers to these questions are also easy to come by. Use the trendiest available color palette that will complement your home's architectural elements, layout, and interior design style. Right now it's trendy to use a palette of 2-3 colors for a high-end look when painting home interiors. It's also OK to choose one amazing white to paint the walls, trim and ceiling.

Use a Trendy Color Palette to Make Your Older Home Look Fresh and New

Every decade brings its own palette of trendy interior colors. Understanding this can give you an incredible edge in selecting paint colors that will help to make your home look fresh and up-to-date. This, in turn, can influence buyers' perceptions that your home is preferable to others that look outdated in comparison. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the color trends for 2017 and color trends for 2018 before you repaint.

Use a Luxury Paint Brand to Best Advantage When You Sell Your Home

Repainting your home is almost always a good investment before listing it for sale.

However, it's questionable whether you'd get your money back out of a truly high-end paint job. On one hand, there are upscale paint brands that provide exceptional long-term value in exchange for their upfront expense. It makes sense to splurge on them in cases where you plan to remain in your home, but you might not get your money back out of them if your main focus is flipping your home quickly.

In cases where you have already invested in a high-quality paint job, it can be a wonderful selling point for the home under the right circumstances. Unfortunately, if you've already repainted your home using costly luxury paints, the paint's superior quality will not be obvious to buyers. You'll have to go out of your way to let them know about it.

If you're marketing your home on a for sale by owner basis, it is easy to make potential buyers aware of enticing upgrades such as this. When you show the home, be sure to mention the renovations you've made and the associated costs. Back up your claims by having copies of your receipts available for interested buyers to view. You can even give them a file that includes the paint color names and numbers. Typically, buyers will be glad to have this information; as life takes its toll on the paint job in the future, having the correct color information will allow them to easily make touch-ups to the home's walls instead of doing a complete repaint.

If a real estate agent is handling the sale of your home, you can certainly give them this information, but be aware that your realtor may not convey the info to your home's potential buyers.

Conclusion

As you can see, the right paint job is an excellent asset that can work to your advantage when you want to sell your home. If you choose an up-to-date color palette that's comprised mostly of white and one or two accent colors, it can increase the home's appeal to potential buyers. When your home is painted beautifully in a way that has mass-market appeal, it shows well and is much more likely to attract offers.