Pasadena Home Staging – The Right Paint Colors Can Help Sell Your Home
Are you thinking about selling your Pasadena home? Has your Pasadena home been listed for a while with a lot of showings but no offers?
There may be a few reasons why a potential home buyer may not be so excited about your home. Some are more difficult to change, like location, number of bedrooms or lack of a swimming pool. But one of the easiest ones to change is the first impression a buyer gets when they walk through the front door.
Many home sellers underestimate the importance and power of choosing paint colors to create the right first impression for potential buyers. And the right paint colors, or combination of paint colors can go a long way in accentuating architectural details that might go unnoticed otherwise. A nicely painted home in a pleasing palette of colors will always leave a great and lasting impression.
A fresh coat of paint over properly prepared walls does wonders to make a home feel well maintained and ready to move in. If the interior of your home has not been painted for 2 or more years, you should consider painting the walls before you put your home on the market. It is not a matter of the age of the paint. After all, most paints last much longer than 2 years. It is a matter of how fresh the paint looks, whether it is dinged, smudged, faded or discolored and whether or not it is a market ready color. If you regularly use your fireplace, you smoke, or cook a lot, your house probably needs to be repainted, regardless of when the last time it was painted. If the molding paint is in good condition and is a complementary color to the wall paint, you may be able to get away with not painting it. Minor dings can be touched up fairly easily.
Notice how the paint color helps accentuate the high ceiling. Photo by Eric Vega (istockphoto.com)
Additionally, the colors you chose to paint the house to suit your taste may not work to your advantage when selling. The Peony Pink walls you love will probably be a real turn off to potential buyers. Remember, its not about how much you like a color, but using color to help generate a purchase offer. Well chosen colors will attract more buyer interest.
While many home stagers and real estate agents will tell you to paint your walls a neutral color, that doesn’t mean you have to paint everything Navajo White. Choose colors that are not too bright, not too dark. Lighter and mid-tone colors work best when preparing your home for sale. Some of my favorite colors to recommend when doing a color consultation as part of home staging are tan, caramel, pale sage green, pale grey blue, linen white. All look fresh and interesting when paired with hardwood floors and crisp white trim. I usually avoid bright reds, oranges, yellow, and purples (including lavender) as those colors tend to be more difficult to match to existing furniture or rented staging furniture and are generally less appealing to potential buyers.
Make sure there is a pleasing flow of color from room to room. Very often you can see the wall color of one room from the next room. They don’t have to be the same color, but the colors should be complimentary and not fight each other. Keep in mind that light and time of day have a tremendous impact on how a color is perceived. If you are not hiring a professional color coordinator to help you select colors, make sure you purchase a sample of each color you’re thinking of using and paint a 12″x12″ square on each wall of the room to see how the color changes with it’s relationship to windows and light sources. A color that looks light on a paint chip, may turn out to be too dark when applied to the walls.
Many professional home stagers offer paint color selection as part of their home staging package or as a stand alone color consultation. These services can be used for preparing your home for sale or for updating/upgrading a home you have just purchased. You can hire a home stager to help select colors and then paint the home yourself or hire a painting professional to complete the work for you. Most home stagers or your listing agent can recommend professional painters if you don’t know who to call.
READ MORE:
Does your Pasadena home have curb appeal?
What can you expect from a great real estate agent?
Sell Your Home in 30 days or less
Part 2 of Sell Your Home in 30 days or less
How to create a great home selling brochure
For more information about preparing a Pasadena home for sale, home staging or for a color consultation, please contact Michelle Minch at (626)441-8975 or visit our Pasadena home staging web site. You can also reach Michelle via email at Michelle@MovingMountainsDesign.com
For more information about selling your Pasadena home, please call Irina Netchaev at 626-627-7107. You can also reach Irina here.
*Pasadena Home Staging – The Right Paint Colors Can Help Sell Your Home* ©2009 Moving Mountains Design
Similar Articles:
Michelle-
I couldn’t agree more! Especially important were your thoughts on repainting for smokers and heavy cookers. Fresh paint really helps a buyer feel like they can see themselves in a space.
Like you mentioned, if a home that’s been smoked in hasn’t sold for months, there is a special paint that fire restoration contractors use that locks smoke smells into the walls- it can give a home a fresh start.
It’s called B-I-N from Zinsser, and after the initial application, it does not off-gas any smells.
Love your choices of colors!
Laurie: Thanks for your comment and for adding the information about Zinsser B-I-N paint for covering up cigarette and cigar smoke odors. Very useful information that I neglected to include.
Hi Michelle
I was browsing on Google last night and came across this beautiful photo graph at the top of this page. I love the wall color. Could you please inform me what the name of this color is and who makes it. It’s stunning!
Thank you in advance
Dawn
Dawn: That photo is a stock photo, so I don’t know for sure exactly what color it is. If I were to guess, I would say the color is Benjamin Moore Tumeric AF-350 or Honeymoon AF-345.