Sell Home According To Color Psychology

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.

Lure Buyers in Selling Your Home

Thinking on how to convince an individual to buy your home may be too challenging, especially if the person you are trying to deal with is somehow sophisticated and fashionable. Though you know that dealing with this kind of people are good payers and are able to give you good deal. But the problem is how you will convince them to choose your home at Siesta Key real estate market.

It may be a once in a life time opportunity if a person has given you a good deal but do have a lot of request before closing the deal. Of course you may want to lose this kind of opportunity and do everything to convince them.

Don’t hesitate to ask question and know some of their request so you can check it out if you can still handle and do the request. Usually a make over is most of the important thing that you should do to make your home presentable and attractive to your buyer. Repaint walls, ceilings and remove stains on the floor. You can hire an expert to do this for you so to impress your buyer. But make sure that your buyer is really ready to buy your home because it might cost you too much in making over your home and ends up hanging in the air waiting for your home to be bought.

Make a list of expenses that you will about to spend in making the renovation and make over. Include the expenses on the selling price of your home. Remember when a home is fully renovated it can have higher value and can be sold in higher price. Make sure that all facilities are all in good working condition, you may want to ask a master electrician to check your electrical wiring connection and make sure that there will be no problem and avoid faulty electrical wiring that can be turn out into an accident or fire.

Beautifying your garden is a good option to convince your buyer, usually sophisticated person do like to have a garden in their place. A good landscaping crew will surely help you to beautify your garden, it may sound expensive but it will surely give a good impression on your buyer. Of course these increase your selling price and add more beauty on your home.

Staging a Home to Sell Quickly

If you’ve watched the news or read a paper, chances are that you know the real estate market is in trouble. So what can you do to make your home one of the ones that will actually sell instead of lingering on the market with the others? The answer is staging.

Staging is the term that real estate professionals use for arranging and decorating a home to show it off and make it as attractive as possible to prospective buyers. In this market, buyers have many houses to pick from, and they aren’t willing to compromise. If you want to sell in a timely manner and for a profit, you need to make your home into a real “dream home.” Luckily there are some inexpensive and easy ways to do that without hiring a professional.

Cut the Clutter
The most important thing that you can do to stage your home is eliminate as much clutter as possible. Before you put your home on the market, do an extensive clean-out. It can seem daunting, but take it one room at a time. And remember that you’ll eventually need to go through everything anyway when you pack up to move, so you’re really just getting an early start.

A good rule of thumb is to get rid of anything that you haven’t used in over a year. If you haven’t used it in three months, box it up. You might want to consider renting a storage unit, or asking a friend or family member to allow you to store some excess items in their basement or garage.

Remember that the fewer things you have in a room, the larger it will seem. Arrange your furniture in a way that clearly shows off the traffic flow from room to room. Keep unsightly but necessary items in decorative baskets or bins.

Also, don’t forget your closets. Buyers will want to look at the closet space, so shoving your clutter out of sight won’t work!

Impersonal Touches
While you’re eliminating clutter, there’s one other thing you’ll want to eliminate from your home: Yourself.

Replace family photos and portraits with neutral artwork. Take your children’s school projects off the refrigerator and hang appointment calendars or family message boards inside closets or cabinets. Consider removing overtly religious or ethnic art or objects as well.

Contrary to what some might think, this isn’t to avoid offending buyers or to protect your family’s privacy. It’s simply to create a “blank slate.” When buyers come into your home, they immediately begin wondering where they’ll put their favorite chair or hang their own family portraits. By removing yourself from the home, buyers will be able to imagine themselves and their own families living there.

Let the Sun Shine In
Proper lighting is essential to staging your home. Make sure that all the curtains and blinds are open to let in as much natural light as possible. Consider replacing heavy drapes with airy sheers. Also make sure that you have plenty of lamps and other lighting. Some buyers may want to see the home in the evening, so make sure it’s well-lit.

Replace all the bulbs in your fixtures with the highest wattage allowed for the fixture. Make sure there are no dark corners by moving lamps around in the room for the most coverage.

Also clean all of your windows. Removing dirt and grime from the outside, as well as smudges and fingerprints from the inside, will improve the quality of light and enhance the overall feeling of brightness.

Keep it Clean
It might seem self-evident, but when you’re showing your home, you need to keep it spotless. Do a big “spring cleaning” before you begin showing. If you’re short on time or if you just hate to clean, many house-cleaning companies offer a one-time deep cleaning session. Call around to get an idea of price and decide if it’s worth the money to avoid that task.

Once your home is clean, dedicate twenty or thirty minutes a day to maintaining. When you’re selling your home, especially in a down market, you’ll want to be able to show your home to buyers at the drop of a hat. If a buyer requests a showing and you ask them to wait until the next day so you can clean up, they may just move on to your neighbor’s house, taking their money with them.

Focus on the kitchen, bathroom, and floors. These are the most obvious “dirty” areas. Make sure you wipe down all counters, appliances, sinks, and mirrors in the kitchen and bathrooms. Vacuum all rugs, fluff cushions and pillows, and run a dust cloth over shelves and televisions. Make sure you make all the beds each morning and pick up any accumulated clutter.

If you take the time to stage your home before you put it on the market, and spend a bit of time maintaining your staging, you can sell your home quick and profitably, even in a buyer’s market.