Using Color Psychology to Sell Your Home
When painting your home for resale, choosing the right colors can make a huge difference in your paycheck at closing. For instance, did you know that the exterior color of houses selling most quickly is a certain shade of yellow, but that choosing the wrong shade of yellow can kill a sale?
You’ll find many brochures in paint stores, showing various combinations of exterior paint colors. But most people don’t realize that most of those combinations actually include three colors, and not just two. Limiting your exterior paint scheme to just two colors also limits your income potential.
For a fast sale, think fun colors and go for a third, or even a fourth, exterior color. Think “Disneyland Main Street,” where every shop is painted in glorious multi-colors. Adding more colors will also add definition to the various architectural details of your home. Use gloss or semi-gloss paint on wood trim.
The Psychology of Exterior Colors
When choosing exterior colors, take the sales price of your home into account. Certain colors, especially muted, complex shades, attract wealthy or highly-educated buyers, whereas buyers with less income or less education generally prefer simpler colors. A complex color contains tints of gray or brown, and usually requires more than one word to describe, such as “sage green,” as opposed to “green.”
On the other hand, simple colors are straightforward and pure. Generally, houses in the lower price range sell faster and for higher prices when painted in simple colors like yellow or tan, accented by white, blue, or green trim.
The Psychology of Interior Colors
Using colored, rather than bland, white walls will increase your profit potential. Lynette Jennings tested the perception of room size and color, and discovered that a room painted white appeared only appeared larger to a few people when compared to an identical room painted in color – and the perceived difference was only about six inches! Most people also look better when surrounded by color, and feel happier, and since buyers pick houses that make them feel happy, that knowledge can put dollars in your pocket at closing!
Entryways should bring the exterior colors into the house. Repeating shades of the exterior throughout your home will make the entire home seem to be in harmony. Living and family rooms painted in a slightly lighter shade of the exterior color will ensure that you’ve picked a color your buyers like, because if they didn’t like your exterior colors, they wouldn’t have bothered to look inside. If they loved the exterior colors, they’ll love the interior, too.
When choosing interior colors, consider the use of each room. For instance, kitchen and dining areas that are painted in “food colors,” such as coffee browns, celery greens, and scrambled egg yellows, feel natural.
Since, deeper shades of color imply intimacy and serenity, I like to paint master bedrooms a medium shade of green or blue for warm selling seasons, and rouge red for cooler weather. Other bedrooms can be painted in creamy tones of green, blue, or a pale shell pink. (See the chapter on the Psychology of Color in my book “Joy to the Home: Secrets of Interior Design Psychology” for further information.)
Selling Season
Always consider your selling season (the time of year you’ll be marketing your home) and climate when choosing colors. Estimate the amount of time you’ll need to get your home ready for sale, and then add on extra days for unexpected delays. Use cool colors, such as blues, greens, and grays, to sell during spring and summer, and warm colors, such as yellows, reds, and maroons, when selling in the fall and winter.
Color Intensity
My husband and I usually use lighter colors when painting the exteriors of our investment dollhouses, because it makes them appear larger. On the other hand, our cabin in the woods looks richer when painted a darker color. When we decided to have it painted, I considered the usual cabin colors of dark brown and barn red, but fell in love with Olympic’s gorgeous “Gooseberry” plum color.
When getting ready to paint your house, look at the colors of neighboring houses and choose colors that harmonize, yet stand out from the crowd. Colors that clash badly with other houses will detract from the overall neighborhood.
At the beginning of the article, I told you that homes with yellow exteriors sell the quickest. But which shade of yellow sells best? First, the yellows to avoid: yellows with green undertones look sickly to most buyers, and yellows with orange undertones give buyers an impression of cheapness.
The best-selling yellow exterior color is actually a pale, sunny yellow, especially when complimented with one or more carefully-chosen accent colors. For instance, a semi-gloss white trim will give your home a clean and fresh look, and adding a third color, such as green, can make your home even more attractive to prospective buyers.
Colors affect human beings in many ways, and by using the principles of Color Psychology, you can make your home stand out from the competition, sell more quickly, and at a higher price.
(c) Copyright 2004, Jeanette J. Fisher. All rights reserved.
Useful Info on Exterior Home Painting
When planning to purchase a house you can always envision the aspect of a living room or how the kitchen will look like and in case you won’t like it, it is easy to have it changed.
This is the way these things turn out to be when it comes to the interior decoration and alterations, but what about the exterior? How can the exterior be changed in order to fit the needs and the desires of the homeowner? The answer is: through the exterior home painting.
Regardless of the material that is used to cover the house, the exterior can be painted in various colors with so many options available. There are many companies that deal with painting services and in case your house is covered in wooden panels you can have it painted to get the same un-altered color or you can have it painted in darker shades to comply with your needs.
The same goes for the brick layer that can be covered in a color that matches the best for the landscaping around and although it doesn’t seem like it, the color of the home painting on the exterior plays a great deal of importance to make one enjoy populating the place called ‘home’. Plenty of companies are willing to offer their services for the porch or deck painting in order for you to get the matching colors that please the eyes.
It is strongly recommended to use the services of a home painting company even if it is about the exterior of your house. There is climbing on the ladder involved, finding the right hue or shade of painting color, not to mention the amount of time. Hiring professionals, they can do this job for you and have it done correctly.
The team of professionals has proper equipment, tools (there is the need to wash the house with a high pressure amount of water using a special tool that homeowners do not normally have around the house) that make the home painting a great experience, especially when the results are seen in the end.
Companies dealing with home painting know which type of paint needs to be used for the specific material that covers the house, and know how to use these products in a right manner and of a correct quality. The brands that you commonly find in the specialized store do not deliver information on the results and how much does the effect lasts compared to the quality products.
There is however an impediment – many homeowners do not resort to the services of professionals due to the higher costs, but if you consider the costs that are involved in purchasing the materials, hiring the specific tools you can reach the conclusion that a team of professionals would be more reasonable to hire.
More than this you can rest assured that they do a job that will not present flaws in the near future as it would otherwise happen in the event of an un-professional home painting.
Exterior Paint Colors – How To Choose?
“Dupioni”; “Faux bois”; “Intaglio”; “Pulmonaria”… Rare tropical diseases? European politicians? Expensive appetizers?
Nope, they’re paint colors! If you’re thinking of painting the outside of your house you might be wondering whatever happened to red, green, and blue!
Paint Paralysis
The dizzying array of color choices and their associated names are enough to give a homeowner a case of Chromophobia – the fear of colors. How do you decide what color(s) to use when there are so many options?
At $40 a gallon or more for quality exterior latex, you can’t afford to make a mistake. And if you don’t like the colors, your neighbors probably won’t either; colors have public impact – you’re not the only one who has to live with them. But a little research and planning can help you get started with the confidence that the final paint job is one that you – and your neighbors – will be pleased with.
Field, Trim, and Accent
An existing house isn’t a blank canvas – after all, you’re not changing the color of the roof, the brick or stone, and maybe not even the windows (if they’re vinyl or aluminum clad). Roofs and masonry walls are large areas of unbroken color and natural starting points for creating a palette.
An exterior paint scheme should be made up of at least three colors: the field – large areas such as walls or roofs; the trim – corner boards, window trim, fascias, rakes, etc.; and accent – specific elements including doors, shutters, and other architectural features.
Field colors make up the majority of what you’ll see on the house and will lead you to the choice of trim and accent. Are you trying to make your house look a little more prominent on the street? A lighter field color will make it look larger; a darker color will visually shrink it. “Unattractive” elements – gutters, downspouts, etc., should also be painted the field color to help them “disappear” into the background.
But it’s the trim color that can make or break the scheme. Painting the trim the same color as the field can work in some cases, but it can also give the house an “unfinished” or “wedding cake” look. Darker trim – especially around the windows – can cause a “frame” effect, where the windows look like pictures hung on a wall. Keeping the trim lighter than the field is almost always a safe bet.
The accent color is where the excitement is. Once you’ve chosen an attractive combination of field and trim, make it “pop” with an eye-catching accent color. It’s a tool to give life to an otherwise muted color scheme and draws attention to the important features of the house. The front door, shutters, and the windows frames (not the trim) are good places for accent colors. Windows painted with accent and trim colors together can be the most interesting part of the composition.
Choosing a Paint Scheme
The two most important considerations in choosing a color scheme are the architecture of the house and the neighborhood context.
Historic architectural styles, for example, look best in their original color schemes, although these can vary quite a bit. Original Colonial and Colonial Revival homes were often quite colorful on the inside, but less so on the exterior. Often they were painted in a single color for the field and trim, with a second color for an accent. Combined with prominent red brick chimneys and a brick or stone base, the effect is a three-color scheme.
Victorian homes – often referred to as “painted ladies” – sometimes showed off six or more colors of trim and accent. Making that look good today takes the services of a color specialist and a lot of time. But a similar effect can be had with as little as three colors if they’re well placed on the house.
The Craftsman style of the early 20th Century sported a darker, earthier color scheme using deep browns, greens, and reds. The current popularity of the style is making more homeowners consider richer color schemes for their homes.
Take cues from the other houses in your area – a house should have its own personality and style, but houses don’t look good in “party dress” all the time.
Final Coat
Whether you’re comfortable with choosing colors or not, you have several resources that can make the decision much easier. Many paint manufacturers have produced pre-selected color palettes arranged by architectural style or color range that specify compatible field, trim, and accent colors. They’re available at paint and building supply stores and most are very well done.
Many paint companies have online paint selection programs that suggest proper color combinations – some even allow you to preview colors on photographs of real houses, or on a digital photo of your own home. Sherwin-Williams.com and Lowes.com both have excellent online tools.
Plan ahead, be bold in your color choices, and use paint company resources. But don’t ask for red, green, or blue in the paint store – they won’t know what you’re talking about!