Why Should I Paint My House Before Selling? An Easy Return on Investment
Once you decide to sell your house, you likely have a lengthy checklist to think about before your home is listed. One of the easiest ways to increase the value of your home is a good quality, professional paint job.
Benefits of painting the interior and exterior
Compared to the cost, painting the interior and exterior of your home before listing is inexpensive. You can expect an average return between 50% to 107% for a repaint.
Making a good first impression
A homebuyer’s first impression will be hard to shake. They last, and the rest of their house tour will be molded by it. A well painted exterior gives the potential buyer an impression of a well-maintained home. An interior free of dings and marks let a buyer envision themselves within the home. Not to mention, if first impressions are great, the buyers might overlook other features that they don’t like.
Increase overall value of the house
Without fail, painting a house before you sell will increase the value of the home. Opendoor has a tool to estimate the value of a repaint on your house based on location and local pricing. An average interior painting project costs $967, while an average exterior paint costs an average of $1,406 according to survey. Both projects provide a great return on investment for sellers.
Picking the right color of paint to sell
While painting your house is a fairly simple process, there are ways to mess things up. If you don’t pick the right colors of paint, you’ll miss out on value, or worse, reduce the value of the home.
Paint colors to avoid
Bright, vibrant colors are usually avoided when painting a home for sale. These colors are a distraction at best, and could make someone absolutely hate your house at worst. Potential buyers that dislike the color would want to repaint after purchase, but more often, they’ll pick a different home.
Neutral colors are best
Whites, beiges, and taupes are the best colors according to experts. These colors give buyers a clean slate to imagine what their life would be like inside the home. It also gives them freedom to consider what colors they would want in the future, if they paint over a simple white.
Accents are okay, especially if they make a space pop! If there are any local trends regarding home color, your realtor or professional painting company will know and help you to decide on the best for your area.
Why you would decide not to paint before listing
In some situations, you might not want to paint your home before you sell. These reasons are fairly specific, and your realtor will know and help guide your decision.
You’ve painted recently
Let’s say you’ve painted your home within the past couple years. If you picked a good, neutral color, and it still looks great, you’ll get the value increase as if it was new! If the color isn’t the best, that’s okay, because it still wouldn’t be worth a repaint.
It’s too expensive
It’s highly improbable, but if a situation arises where the cost is larger than the increase in home value, you shouldn’t paint. This happens more often with homes that are already worth a lot. The higher a home value is, the less return you get from home improvement projects, including repainting.
Situational reasons
Depending on your local market, there could be a couple reasons to skip painting the house. If it’s a hot market, you could already be getting more value for the home. Also, you want to sell while the market is still hot. Alternatively, buyers in your neighborhood might prefer a house that needs work done so they can resell.
Touch up damaged and weathered areas
One of the most important reasons to repaint the house before selling is to provide touch ups on dings, faded paint, and general wear. Weathered areas of the house reduce value in the eyes of buyers, so you want to take care of them before listing.
Bad paint job is worse than a bad color
You should always hire a professional painter when getting ready to sell your home. A poor paint job will ruin a potential buyer’s expectations and assumptions about the rest of the house. For example, one might think that a bad paint job is covering up a house’s structural damage.
Spot paint instead of full repaint
Sometimes, for cost effectiveness, a spot paint is better than an entire house paint. If you remember each color you used in the past, you can cover up small marks and scratches easily. This could give you some of the repainting value without having to hire a professional.
For any large projects, leave it to the professionals. If you’re about to sell a home in Tampa Bay, Old Crow Painting will provide a free estimate of the cost. Hire the best Tampa painters for your project today!