As the real estate market cools off, selling your home requires that you return to the basic fundamentals. Here are some tips for preparing your home to sell as applied to painting.

Tips on Preparing Your Home for Sale - Painting

We have just come out of one of the all time glorious seller's markets. The demand was so rabid, you could practically close a transaction before you the property appeared in the multiple listing services. I actually went to look at models in a new development where there was a line to get into the properties! Talk about a seller's market. With demand cooling off and prices pulling back, you actually have to put some effort into selling your home today. Here are some tips to make it happen when it comes to paint.

Buying a property is very much an emotional act. Yes, issues such as schools, location, size and so on come into play, but a buyer is primarily motivated by what they see. To this end, one of the biggest issues to consider when preparing your home to go on the market is the paint.

You may need a major paint job on your home or just some minor tweaks. Only you can decide, but painting should be approached in a systematic manner. If you have rooms that are on the small side, you should paint them with a lighter color. Lighter colors make a room look larger. Conversely, an overly large room should be painted with darker colors, which will make it look smaller.

The second issue to consider with painting is the odd nature of colors. When considering colors, you will look at patches to find a selection. For some odd reason, what you see in samples rarely translates to the appearance on your home. To save money, time and frustration, do not pick a color and then paint the area in question. Instead, you should buy a small amount of the paint and apply it to a small part of the wall in question. Let it dry and then consider if it meets your expectations. Often, the color will not appear as you thought it would. Take note of the problem and then buy another small pint of paint that has the correction, to wit, slightly lighter or darker. Now paint another small part of the wall and see what it looks like. Repeat this process until you find the color you want.

At the end of the day, a buyer that falls in love with the physical appearance of your home is the one that is going to make an offer. Painting all or part of your home is one way to make sure that happens.