What Color to Paint Your Home’s Exterior? White Is the No. 1 Pick of Buyers.

  • Forty percent of homebuyers say that white is the color of choice for a home’s exterior.
  • Other popular colors include off-white, putty, taupe, and gray.
  • Painting your home’s exterior is the quickest way to change its appearance and style.

What Color to Paint Your Home’s Exterior? White Is the No. 1 Pick of Buyers.

What’s the best color to paint the exterior of your home if you’re looking to put it on the market?

White. Or off-white. Cream is OK, and maybe putty. There’s noting wrong with a light shade of beige, either, but nothing too dark, or garish.

This advice may seem a bit severe, but really it’s not. Color experts and real estate professionals agree that shades of white and off-white are the top colors for a quick home sale. Bold, distinctive colors draw sharp opinions: What’s attractive to one person may be anathema to someone else — someone who otherwise might have been interested in bidding on the property.

There are exceptions to every rule, of course. If you own one of San Francisco’s celebrated “painted ladies” — Victorian gems that beg for attention — go ahead and spin a color wheel with abandon. But for the rest of us, it’s best to tone down our color expectations. A few days ago, a headline on the USA Today website summed it up neatly: “Best paint color for a quick home sale? White.”

The Bob Vila website recently identified eight exterior paint colors best suited to help sell a house, and the top four were off-white, putty, taupe, and gray. From there the colors got a little bit wild — blue-gray, yellow and light blue — before doubling back to a trusted standard: white.

The website quoted an editor at Traditional Home magazine saying “We’re seeing a lot of putty, warm taupe, and gray hues — exterior house colors that blend in with the natural surroundings.”

Painting your home’s exterior is the quickest way to change its appearance and style, giving an immediate boost to its curb appeal. A Homes.com article on “buyer-friendly” colors noted that “your home’s exterior is what makes the first impression, so color is important. For 40 percent of home buyers, white is the color of choice. White not only looks clean and crisp, but it also makes the house look larger than it really is. It also serves as the perfect base color, allowing the homeowners to paint the trim an accent color that makes the home ‘pop.'”

“Another solid pick for your home’s exterior is beige. Beige is neutral and bright and capable of blending in more comfortably on a property that is wooded or landscaped. Like white, beige can also be beautifully enhanced by a bold accent color.”

One final bit of advice, again from the Bob Vila website: “Exterior house colors should be ones you love coming home to day after day.”

(Photo: iStock/Hookmedia)

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