If you’re feeling a little blue this holiday season, that could be great news for your home values. According to Zillow’s 2017 Paint Color Analysis the right shade of blue in your bathroom could add more than $5,000 to your sales price, while light blue kitchens and bedrooms net sellers nearly $2,000 more on their homes than comparable homes with white walls. Zillow’s chief economist, Svenja Gudell, speculated that the higher price tags were likely due to rooms appearing “larger” while still being “neutral enough to help future buyers envision themselves living in the space.”
Take the Blues Queues
The report indicated that light blue and light periwinkle are the best paint color shades for bathrooms, while “pale gray” and “oatmeal” in both the bathroom and living room also tended to have a positive impact on sales price. A darker blue shade, what the analysts described as “slate blue” and “navy blue,” can benefit you in your dining area, possibly tacking $1,926 onto your sales price. Blue kitchens also added value. The report recommended “light blue to soft gray-blue.”
While homeowners with the blues may both ask and receive higher sales prices on their homes this holiday season, don’t assume that every innovative color choice is going to be a winner. Investors have traditionally stuck with neutral colors, as Gudell observed, in order to keep their rental and retail properties neutral enough to appeal to buyers regardless of personal design preference. These blue shades have an added advantage because they are trendy but still easy to paint over, with the exception of that navy-blue dining room. On the other hand, the once-trendy terracotta-red dining room now could cost you just over $2,000. And pink bedrooms may lose you a couple hundred dollars if the buyer does not have a child with that color preference.
Sales Price, Correlation, and Paint Color Conclusion
Zillow evaluated 32,000 photos from listings around the country sold between 2010 and February 2017. Then, the analytics team compared color schemes to final sales prices and “controlled for other wall colors, square footage, the age of the home, the date of the transaction, and location.”
Beware of picking a paint color scheme simply because you think it will net you more money when you sell a property. Real estate investors should always factor in the purpose of the property (rental or retail?) and the appearance of comparable properties in an area. Painting the powder room blue might be a great way to make your rental stand out, but “oatmeal,” for example, may be easier to maintain and feel less dated in a few years’ time.
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