What color is your dream home?

According to what I have read on-line, the most popular house color, not surprisingly, is white. All you have to do is look around good old New England and you can see quaint villages full of white houses, churches, and town buildings. According to one article, 37% of homeowners would choose white as the predominate color if they were to repaint the exterior of their home.

 I’d say white is pretty popular here in the Lakes Region, but does one color home sell quicker than another? I found that people don’t really shop for a particular color home as it can always can be repainted. But, I do think a great paint job in the right color or combination of colors can make a difference in the home’s curb appeal and can sometimes make the sale. Buying a home is a very visual process. Some style homes look better painted one color versus another. You know, that little red cape on the corner might not look as good sky blue.

I thought I would take a look at what has sold since the first of the year in the twelve Lakes Region communities I track to see if there is anything that can be learned about what colors are most popular, which color home sells the quickest, and what other mostly useless or profound info I could gather. So here goes.

 As of this past Monday there were a little over 440 homes sold. As expected, white appears to the winner with 63 homes. The second most popular color appears to be grey or gray (is there a difference?) with a total of 59 houses. There were 34 beige homes sold, 46 tan, 9 cream, 7 clay, 4 taupe, 1 putty, 1 slate, 1 pebble, and 2 sand colored houses. You could infer that a lot of home owners don’t take chances on color and kind of like to be neutral. There were also 34 brown homes sold and 1 “light brown”…could that really be a chocolatey gray? There was also 1 mocha home sold (a Dunkin Donut’s inspired paint theme).

There was 1 “maple” colored colonial home sold that looks like it could be taupe, cream, or some kind of tan to me. I get a little colorblind on these shades, but all I can think of is maple flavored oatmeal. There was 1 gold colored home that sold cheap so that color didn’t help. There was 1 peach colored waterfront cottage sold that was kind of peachy so that color really fit.

Getting back to more basic colors, there were 19 yellow homes sold. I think yellow looks great on certain homes and makes them really pop. There were 14 blue homes sold and one “light blue”. Red houses generally have a real appeal to some buyers and there were 11 of those sold along with 2 burgundy. There was 1 lavender Victorian sold and the pictures of it look of it looked great. There were 14 green, 3 sage, and 1 “evergreen”. Do you think “evergreen” means you never have to repaint?

There were 12 natural colored homes sold. “Natural” usually means a clear stain on redwood or cedar shingles. Or perhaps they were too lazy to paint the place at all? There were no “unnatural” ones unless you classify that lavender or peach as such. There were also 4 “cedar” colored homes sold and 4 “log” colored homes. I don’t think “log” is a color, do you? The house could be a natural wood color or maybe one of those rare albino white birch log homes? One home’s color was listed as “brk/wht” which turns out to be a brick house with white trim. There were 8 homes whose color was “TBD” which is a shade yet to be determined. Finally, the remainder of the homes sold had no color listed at all. I suspect in those cases the agent inputting the data was perhaps a bit colorblind like me.

The most expensive home sold was brown, followed by a sage, a TBD, a natural, and the lone “evergreen” which actually looks grey-blue (or is it gray-blue) in the pictures. Out of the quickest 20 sales, 5 homes were white, 4 grey, 1 red, 1 cedar, 1 tan, 1 yellow, 1 clay, 2 “TBD”, and there were 4 homes with no color listed.

So it looks like homes of just about every color sells. I would bet that the main thing regarding the paint color is that the paint is in good condition and is appealing. If you are going to repaint your home before you sell it, look around and see what colors and color combinations look good on homes like yours. Professional painters can also give you some great ideas on colors and color combinations that are appealing and in style today.