7 Paint Colors That Boost Your Home’s Real Estate Value

Real estate agents used to tell you to make your home a blank canvas when you were prepping it to sell. White or neutral walls made it easier for them to picture their furnishings in every room. That standard advice has been flipped on its head: The latest research from Zillow found that painting your home in rich, memorable colors like charcoal gray can make it sell for more money. According to the real estate site’s 2024 paint color analysis, buyers pay, on average, $2,512 more when a house has a kitchen painted in the moody gray hue. Using it in the living room can increase the offer by $1,755 more.

People want color, says Amanda Pendleton, home trends expert at Zillow. “All-white walls are not only falling out of fashion but can even hurt a home’s value,” she says. “The right paint colors can deliver a powerful visual signal to a buyer that a home is well maintained and contemporary, while the wrong paint colors can create the opposite impression,” Pendleton adds.

A white kitchen is losing ground and can actually cause a buyer’s offer to drop by more than $600, according to the Zillow findings. That may be because a blank canvas can sometimes read as boring and basic. “When staging a home for sale, most guides will tell you to simply paint everything white, but luxury home buyers are looking for turnkey properties that look and feel designed, not institutional,” Jason Saft, founder of Staged To Sell Home, a staging service in New York, says. “People strive to have the perfect backdrop at home.”

This is consistent with what designers are seeing. “The moody work of designers like Jake Arnold, Amber Interiors, and Heidi Callier has been dominating Pinterest, so it’s no wonder homeowners are emulating the cozy styles and searching them out when they go to purchase a new home,” Bethany Adams, principal of her eponymous design firm in Louisville, Kentucky, says. “Whether dark gray, green, blue, or another deep color with neutral undertones, these spaces are incredibly evocative and easy to imagine oneself in.”

The Case for Color

The penchant for dark, rich colors certainly comes from exposure to mood boards and projects seen on social media, but it connects with us on a deeper level. “Human beings have an innate desire for belonging,” Mehnaz Khan, a color psychology specialist and principal at Color Conscious Living in Albany, New York, says. “And if you have a house that has the same interior colors as a favorite influencer, that creates a sense of belonging and community. That’s why people follow trends.” Also, Khan points out, no one wants a boring home. On a subconscious level, the beiges of the aughts create an illusion that “the house is stuck, and nobody wants to spend their life savings on a house that needs work,” Khan says.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t have a single white wall. Houston designer Benjamin Johnston says, “White walls will never go out of style. They lend a beautiful foundation to introduce color through decor, furniture, and art.” But he agrees that rich hues can boost a sale price, explaining, “That being said, social media and the ease with which others can now showcase their homes can cause a bit of design FOMO. People see others experimenting with color, pattern, and wallpaper, and want to try it themselves. There’s now just an abundance of color and creativity to explore.”

As for where to focus your painting budget, the Zillow research finds that updating a home’s common spaces has the greatest impact on resale value. “Homeowners will get the biggest bang for their buck if they’re strategic about the colors they select in their kitchen and living room,” Pendleton says.

Silver in the Kitchen