Does Exterior Paint Increase Your Home Value?

There is a wealth of information online about selling a home. Real estate agents advise homeowners to have “curb appeal” while also being told to renovate their kitchens and bathrooms because these things sell a house. Homeowners are also asked to install new windows and doors, lay hard wood floors, and install crown molding. All of these things are required in order to make their home desirable to buyers.

All of these recommendations make sense, except for one small aspect. Homeowners often put the majority of their furniture in storage so that potential buyers may see the size of the rooms and can picture their own things fitting into the rooms. What potential buyers often see is not the space or the storage, but tired rooms that would benefit from a fresh coat of paint.
The same can be said with the outside of a home as well. Pressure washing the siding on a house only goes so far toward freshening up the look of the home. When compared to other homes in the neighborhood whose outside looks fresh and clean, your home might come in a tired looking second. What homeowners should do from here is change the perception of potential buyers.

The Power of a First Impression

How many times have you passed by a home and wondered why the home owners went with a particular shade of color on their siding. Perhaps another home is too dark. Another may have a house painted in contrasting colors or sport bright orange shutters. The same thoughts can occur to others when seeing your home if enough care is not taken into consideration.
Most homes you will see are either sided or painted in neutral colors such as cream, gray, tan, or white, while shutters are usually black or brown. These quiet colors will give potential buyers a good first impression. The first thing potential buyers will see when they pull into the driveway is the landscaping and colors of the home up close, allowing for that breathtaking first impression.

What Colors Are Right For Your Home?

Experts agree that only three colors should be applied to a home at a time. One color, let’s use medium gray as an example, should go on the house. The second color, perhaps white, goes on the garage door, the trim, soffits, and porch roof. The third color, let’s use a bright blue or warm golden yellow as another example, should go on the front door for an eye-catching pop of color.
You always want to keep the color you want on the house on the actual house. What we mean is that you don’t want to paint the dormers (from the example above) the medium gray while leaving the white for the rest of the house. This result would lead to an unbalanced look of the home that would put off potential buyers.
Another trick of the trade is to paint your house using warm colors instead of cool colors. For instance, a warm tan or champagne shade would give prospective buyers a better impression of the house than a cool blue or green.

Should You Paint The Home Yourself?

In reality, most homeowners work from dawn to dusk and have no time to paint an entire home. Additionally, home owners may have a basic ladder in the garage, but will most likely not have equipment necessary for a proper paint job such as scaffolding or spraying equipment. Moreover, a paint job performed by novices could expose faults such as apparent brush marks on the siding or trim, indicating to potential buyers that the job was performed poorly or unprofessionally. This would be a deterring factor for a potential buyer as the paint job on the home would have to be performed again, and normally at the home buyers expense.

Exterior paint on a house brings in an average of $2,000 return on investment and normally will cost less than $1,500. This means that hiring a professional will automatically be cost effective in any home selling process. In addition, your home will give off that brand new look you want buyers to see, a look that our painters could provide for you.

>> Related Content: Quality Painting Services