PAINT IS THE BEST INVESTMENTS SELLERS CAN MAKE
If you’re selling a home, real estate specialists suggest you repeat this mantra: paint-paint-paint. Now, more than ever, a seller has to be fanatical about the appearance of the house. And painting gives you one of the best returns on your investment.
Spend a few hundred dollars on paint and brushes and it could yield you thousands at the settlement table when the property sells. Or, it could mean the difference between selling or not selling your home.
When there is a large inventory of homes on the market, there’s a great likelihood the buyer will take the home in tip-top shape before he’ll even consider buying the older house.
All things being equal, a home with the right sort of freshly painted walls will sell faster and for a better priced than one where the painted walls are tinted, dark, or discolored. For sellers, painting should be right up on top of the list-along with being neat and tidy. Still, not all paint jobs will be equally valuable. Painting your rooms pink, yellow, lavender or Kelly green could hurt rather than help you sell. And painting them blue could actually drive buyers away, psychologists say. That’s because, to much of the population, blue is a depressing color inside a home.
A neutral off-white is the right choice. When you choose a white paint with a hint of beige, which is a true off-white, you’re selecting a color that will neither offend nor conflict with a prospective buyer’s furnishings.
The universal color to paint a house is two coats of shell white. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to tell by name alone whether you have selected a true off-white that is tinted (no matter how subtly) with gray, blue, purple, gold, green or another color that makes matching difficult.
Suppose your rooms are light green and buyer has a red sofa. That way you would be forcing them to paint your house before they move in. Nobody wants to do that. Off-white walls also make your interior seem bigger. A 10-by-10 room of shell white will look larger than a 10-by-10 room done in blue, pink or yellow. When it comes to painting a property that’s for sale, consider these pointers: Select the paint carefully.
Because of the confusion related to paint terminology, you can easily make the wrong color choice if you don’t buy through a dealer who can assist you with the purchase. Look for a dealer-owned or well-informed clerk who can distinguish one paint from another.
The store should also help steer you to paint with the right finish. Flat latex paint is a popular and attractive choice but becomes easily soiled. Semi-gloss is fine for walls in the bathrooms, kitchens or smaller areas that get dirty frequently, because semi-gloss is easily cleaned.
But painting large wall areas– such as living, dining or family rooms– in semi-gloss paint is considered a poor idea. The problem with semi-gloss on interior walls is that light reflects off the surface and you can see all the imperfections.
Fortunately, paint buyers now have a third choice– A nice compromise between flat and semi-gloss paint. Paint with an “eggshell finish” should give you much of the beauty of flat latex paint by still allowing you to keep the walls clean while your home is on the market. This could be particularly important if there are small children in your home.
Eggshell paint may be a couple dollars more per gallon but it’s worth it because it’s washable.
Don’t think it’s too late to paint because your home has already been listed for sale. Soon after a home has gone to market, many a seller becomes aware that it’s not presenting well. Often the awareness comes from comments left by agents and prospects that have trooped through.
Ignore feedback about the condition of your walls at your own peril. Most buyers can’t envision how the house would look when the walls are painted, so an explanation about how little work would be involved for the new buyer to paint would do you little good.
The wise thing is to limit buyers’ access to your property until you can get the paint job done by a professional or do the work yourself. There’s no point having would-be buyers come through while painting is in progress. With furniture and floors covered with tarps, it’s hard to tell how the place would look. And the odor of paint gives many people headaches.
