How to increase your home's equity is a common question for homeowners. Common ways include updating your kitchen, bathroom, flooring, or doing some landscaping. However did you know that your choice of paint color can also have an impact on your home's value to potential home buyers? According to a report by Zillow, dark grey walls mean for higher offer prices. This remains true regardless of which room is painted the dark grey (ie, accent wall in the living room versus a bathroom). So many of the ways to increase your home's equity involve time consuming and pricey projects. This isn't the case for painting a wall- which is relatively quick and inexpensive. However paint can have a dramatic impact on how a buyer views your home's interior, as this study shows.
What has buyers attracted to this darker color scheme so much so that they will pay higher for it? Color Psychology Specialist Mehnaz Khan has a theory. According to Khan, "Buyers have been exposed to dark gray spaces through home improvement shows and their social media feeds, but they’re likely drawn to charcoal on a psychological level." This makes sense to us! Especially considering we are living in a time of TikTok videos and 24 hour HGTV shows.
So are all shades of grey created equal? Nope! The darker greys ( usually named charcoal) are the most popular. According to Zillow "homes with dark grey kitchen can well up to $2512 more than similar homes with lighter kitchen walls". The same holds true for bedrooms, with "shades of dark grey fetching up to $1755 more than pales and neutrals".
Happy painting!