(NEXSTAR) — While the housing market continues to be hot in many parts of the country, it has certainly slowed since the pandemic peaks of recent years. Regardless, something as small as the colors you choose to paint your rooms could have a big impact on how much your home sells for, according to a new study.
After reviewing a series of studies of more than 4,700 recent and prospective home buyers nationwide, real estate website Zillow said it found paint color can bolster — or hinder — a home’s sale price by hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
So what colors should you opt for? It’s all about the mood, according to Zillow’s analysis.
It’s no secret color can impact our mood. A bright color like yellow may make you cheery, a blue may calm you down. When it comes to current and possible homebuyers, one mood appears to be reigning supreme: charcoal gray.
“Gray is the color of retreat,” Mehnaz Khan, a color psychology specialist and interior designer in Albany, New York, told Zillow. That sense of retreat may be especially important now, as many return to hectic lifestyles they may not have had since before the COVID pandemic.
Don’t rush out and buy the first gray paint you see, though.
For example, Zillow found that those surveyed would offer roughly $3,365 less for a home with a cement gray front door. Instead, opt for a black or a “mid tone rosy brown” — recent and potential homebuyers were willing to offer $300 more for a home with the latter.
Inside, various shades of gray were found to improve potential offers. According to Zillow, participants would offer over $2,500 more for a home with a graphite gray or a mid tone pewter gray kitchen than similar homes with a different color in the kitchen. Living rooms and bedrooms painted dark gray brought in potential offers of at least $1,755 more than those in pale neutrals.
So what colors should you avoid?
Zillow’s survey found recent and potential home buyers largely disliked bright colors like daisy yellow and light blue the least across the house.
A bathroom painted light blue or daisy yellow cut potential offers by roughly $675 and $975, respectively. Recent and potential buyers offered $1,760 less for bathrooms painted a shamrock green.
Participants would also offer more than $2,100 less for a daisy-colored kitchen, Zillow found. And while gray shades could increase the offer by over $2,500, a dark red or green could cut the offer by over $1,000.
Daisy yellow was even less liked in the living room. Zillow’s study found such a color could bring down a potential offer by more than $3,000. No other color in any room in the study had such a large estimated impact. Light green, dark green, and dark red in the living room also had a negative impact on potential offers made by recent and potential home buyers.
Study participants viewed four homes and were shown four images of each home’s interior, one each of the living room, kitchen, primary bedroom, and primary bathroom, Zillow explains. Each room was randomly assigned one of 11 colors: dark and light gray, dark and bright red, high reflective white, mid-brown, light and medium blue, light and dark green, and bright yellow.
Researchers warned that other factors could impact an actual offer made on a home, and how the colors look in real life may create a different experience than viewing images. Instead, the different responses to the room colors better show how small improvements could prove beneficial.
It isn’t just repainting a room that could impact selling your home.
Analyses by Zillow and Realtor.com have found that the best time to list your home on the market is usually around mid to late April. Home buyers have been found to be willing to pay a higher price around this time.
Alternatively, Realtor.com determined early fall — last year, September 25 through October 1 — is “the very best time of the year” for homebuyers. They say there are usually fewer buyers and more homes on the market around this time.