Color plays an important part in selling a home.

Everywhere we turn in life, there is color and they make us feel different emotions and trigger memories. Some of these emotions don’t bring about such fond memories.  It is difficult to depict which person is going to feel a certain way or what memory the color they saw will trigger.

This is the same when you have your home up for sale and you are having many different personalities with diversified backgrounds, emotions and memories that follow each potential buyer coming into your.  Color does influence a potential buyer’s choices in home purchases.  For instance, there can be two homes with the same identical floor plan, but if one of the home’s décor colors are more of a neutral, whereas, the other home has extreme or dramatic color, then you are narrowing the potential buyers for your home’s color décor style.  Now you will have to wait until that one buyer visits your home, who has the same likes in color as you do in home décor, unless they are willing to take the home “as is” and redecorate.  However, when a buyer wants to purchase and knowing immediately they will paint and change colors, then usually the seller will get a lower offer than anticipated, due to color incompatibility with the buyer.

Most of us decorate our home the way we want it, so we incorporate color into our décor that makes us feel good and triggers great memories for us.  However, if your goal is to only live in your home a short time and put it up for sale, then it might be best to tone down your color personality and take a more middle of the road approach to color in your home.

Color Positive and Negative feelings:

White
Positive – cleanliness, efficiency, clarity, purity, simplicity
Negative – unfriendliness, coldness, sterile

Black
Positive – efficiency, security, sophistication, glamorous
Negative – coldness, heaviness, oppression

Brown
Positive – warmth, nature, earthy, reliability, support, masculinity, stability
Negative – heaviness, non glamorous, little humor

Grey
Positive – neutrality
Negative – dampness, depression, hibernation, lack of confidence, little energy

Green
Positive – balance, harmony, rest, environmental awareness, peace, tranquility,
Negative – stagnation, bland, boredom

Purple
Positive – spiritual, vision, luxurious, truth, quality
Negative – suppression, inferior, introversion

Orange
Positive – comfort, food, warmth, security, sensuality, passion, fun, abundance, high visibility
Negative – frustration, immaturity, deprivation, frustration, deceit, distrust

Yellow
Positive – sunshine, optimistic, high self esteem, confidence, friendliness, creativity, joy
Negativity – fear, emotional fragility, depression, anxiety

Blue
Positive – Intelligence, trust, serenity, calmness, coolness, reflection, communication, health
Negative – unemotional, unfriendliness, coldness, disconnected

Red
Positive – strength, courage, warmth, energy, survival, stimulation, excitement, powerful, masculine
Negative – aggression, strain, visual impact, defiance

As you can see, color can trigger many emotions.  This doesn’t mean decorate with no color and have a bland home, but to take a more neutral approach with color in your décor.  This can mean the difference of a quick sale or waiting for a long time for the right buyer to come in and fall in love with your décor and color style.  Maybe choose variations of lighter shades when incorporating color and if you need to go dramatic, tone it down with other colors or lighter tones of the dramatic color.

Positive thoughts and happy selling.