21 of the Best Paint Colors for Selling a House (Interior and Exterior)

Ugly paint jobs are a distracting klaxon for homebuyers. That’s not to say that Day-Glo orange bedrooms, purple kitchens, and dark brown bathrooms are homely, but they aren’t pretty either. Fair or not, buyers remember things that stick in their minds, and those bright colors will leave an indelible mark on the mind.

Like in nature, where bright, garish colors warn animals to stay away, a flawed color palette in a home warns buyers to keep a wide berth. It’s not an overstatement to say that your home’s palette can determine whether you make the sale or not.

Step one: Talk to an expert!

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As you prepare to sell your home, we want to make choosing the best paint easier for you, so we selected colors that you should consider. These colors are from HomeLight’s Top Agent Insights Reports and other reputable sources.

Rules of thumb: Painting before you sell

Before we jump into the best paint colors for selling a house, let’s talk about some general rules you should follow as you select paint colors.

99% of the time, choose one neutral color

As a seller, you can’t go wrong with a neutral color.

Neutral colors jumpstart the imagination and inspiration of your potential buyer, which allows them to imagine your home with their furniture and style. Top agents surveyed agreed that neutral color schemes are the most popular with buyers.

But what color is the undisputed heavyweight champ? It’s white.

Janet Anderson, a top real estate agent who sells properties 29% faster than average in Tracy, California, explains “white is very popular” because it provides your buyers with a blank canvas with which to work.

Additionally, Fixr, a home improvement resource company, surveyed 71 interior design experts and found that 81% prefer warm neutrals and 49% prefer whites as the best colors when preparing a house to sell. Earthy tones make an appearance on their trend list as well.

The versatility of neutral colors (primarily white) appeals to the broadest swath of buyers and suits an enormous range of interior design palettes and styles.

Commit to an undertone

Each paint color has an underlying, subdued, or muted tone called an undertone. The undertone may be cool, warm, or neutral.

Cool shades are slightly blue, green, or violet, and produce a calm feeling. That’s why blue is a good bedroom color. Warm undertones have a subtle red, orange, or yellow base and generate a cheery, inviting atmosphere. They also accentuate the effects of natural light. Finally, neutral undertones balance between cool and warm shades.

For expert guidance on how to use undertones, top real estate agent Pamella Knapp offers advice from her experience of selling homes 67% quicker than the average agent in Kalamazoo, Michigan, “What we usually say is if your floors have any kind of brown or blonde-like tone to them, you want to do a beige color. If you have any sort of a cool color or more of a yellow-y, gray tone on the floors, we encourage people on the walls to do a really, really light gray.”

Follow neighborhood trends

Look to your neighbors for inspiration. While you may love your magenta exterior paint and purple accents, no one wants to buy the bruise-colored house in the neighborhood.

The nail that sticks out indeed gets hammered down, and in the case of your house, that could mean no one will buy it. “What you’re trying to do is you’re trying to open your house up to more buyers. You want to appeal to as many buyers as possible. The more buyers interested in your home, the more likely you will get top of the market range,” Anderson explains.

Your home might sell, but if it is discordantly colored, you may not get your full asking price.