Which Exterior Color is Best to Sell Your Home?

By Bill Primavera

Last week, I visited a home which bears the historic mark of being a Sears catalogue home. It was delightful, from its design and layout to its exterior paint color that its owner says was selected by vote from his online friends. It’s a very rich red and, with its off-white trim, nicely defines and sets off the presence of the home on its street.

But would a rich red be the best color to paint a house for sale? As I viewed this particular house, I thought that the answer would be yes. But choosing the right exterior color for a house depends on many factors including the style of the house and its relationship to the other houses on the street.

When I found my dream home in moving from the big city to the “country,” a historic (meaning old) property in Yorktown Heights, it was painted a barnyard brown. Supposedly there was a woman on the town’s Advisory Board on Architecture and Community Appearance, who happened to love the color brown and her influence was felt on many projects that came up for review by her committee. For a while, it seemed as though the town might be on its way to being renamed Brownsville.

With my house, every nook and cranny, including all the trim work, was painted the same drab brown color. I stayed with it for a few years until my budget allowed for a new paint job, even though it wasn’t yet needed. I just wanted to get away from the brown, which was a more recessive color. 

For the new paint job, I chose for my home a color that was a cross between gray and beige. When my Aunt Pearl first visited us, she christened the color “greige.”  And we lived with that color until we were ready to sell almost 40 years later.

Interestingly, I hadn’t realized that the color had oxidized significantly through the years and was a pronounced pale green by the painter who came to do touchups in the few places where the paint had chipped away.

What? Green? Yes, the color had actually faded to a pale green and we had to match it from the greens on the Benjamin Moore color chart.

But whatever color it was, it was lighter and brighter than the original dark brown, and the color “popped” forward, rather than receding back into the landscape. The change to a lighter color had the effect of enlarging the house for the viewer, and that was fine with me when it came to finding a buyer.

For appealing to buyers, a home for sale should look warm and inviting. Unusual colors may turn away some potential buyers. Bob Vila’s website recommends some trending colors that he feels work best for selling a house.

If painting for resale, Vila recommends 12 exterior house paint colors, which he claims offer undeniable curb appeal. In descending order, they include: off-white, which would appeal to a majority of people, being as neutral as you can get, and pale to medium yellow, that says “happy” right off the bat. (Make sure the color doesn’t get too intense; I remember a house in my neighborhood that was painted such an intense color of marigold that some neighbors thought it was done as a spite job!)

Moving on with the list, there’s light blue (my personal least favorite, but taste cannot be argued); gray (which is always a safe choice for appealing to the largest number of people); taupe; putty; blue/gray; wheat; medium to pale green; white; brown; and my friend’s choice for his Sears home, red.

My only experience until now with a home painted red was visiting the house of my first teenage girlfriend crush whose father told me that he regretted painting it that color because he felt that it absorbed the heat. The color also faded on him.

I don’t know the quality of the paint he used, but I do know that red was America’s favorite color for painting barns throughout the 19^th century because it absorbed more of the sun’s rays than bare wood and kept the inside of the barn warmer during the winter months. So, its fault is also a benefit.

A buyer viewing my friend’s Sears home will love it, no matter what color it might be. But for appealing to the largest number of prospective buyers today, most realtors would recommend sticking with the neutrals.

Bill Primavera, while a publicist and journalist, is also a realtor associated with William Raveis Real Estate and founder of Primavera Public Relations, Inc. (www.PrimaveraPR.com). To engage the services of The Home Guru to market your home for sale, call 914-522-2076.

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