Nationally (protecected classes highlighted):In the Sale and Rental of Housing: No one may take any of the following actions based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status or handicap:Refuse to rent or sell housingRefuse to negotiate for housingMake housing unavailableDeny a dwellingSet different terms, conditions or privileges for sale or rental of a dwellingProvide different housing services or facilitiesFalsely deny that housing is available for inspection, sale, or rentalFor profit, persuade owners to sell or rent (blockbusting) orDeny anyone access to or membership in a facility or service (such as a multiple listing service) related to the sale or rental of housing.Fair Housing--It's Your RightLocally there can be others.

In fact the last one we were in, we updated her house with modern paint colors & fixed a few things & she was able to rent it in a week at a higher price when we moved out.

Lowe's has a free account "MY LOWE'S"  to help you track products by property (paint color, filters, etc..)

What is that interior paint color in the kitchen?

Oh deffenitly go for it, my husband and I do as much as we can on our own (luckily my husband has experience in some construction areas and his profession is installing AC units and air duct) But we both do a lot of work like demo, sheet rock, painting, installing the cabniets even the roof.

3) Last one, when picking out cabinets/fixtures/carpet/flooring/paint colors do you just provide all this information to the contractors?

You can usually find a route to put in duct work or perhaps build runs on ceiling or walls that look nice and hide the ducts.

Despite what most people think, painting a room in dark colors (dark grays are so hot now) actually makes a room look larger and more homey when paired with the right staging.  

We get forced equity through fixing cheap fixes that turn people off (bad wall color etc) and going through the short sale process (5-15% cheaper)!

I mean for the price at around .83 cents a letter and .48 cents a full color postcard I am going with them.