This Paint Color Can Rob Your Home Value of $6,500

You’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but apparently a home’s door is just fine.

A recent Zillow study looked at how different paint colors on front doors affect home sale prices and found certain colors could make a home worth thousands more — or thousands less.

For the study, recent and prospective homebuyers were randomly assigned images of front doors with one of 11 paint colors. All homes had the same interiors.

Participants then scored each door color based on how it affected their perception of the home, the likelihood of them buying it and the price they would be willing to pay.

Following are the colors that had the biggest impact, for better or worse.

Pale pink

Color’s effect on expected home sale price: Decrease of $6,516, on average

Something about this color seems to feel cheap — perhaps too similar to a Barbie dollhouse?

It had the harshest effect on home prices and some study participants commented it made the home “kind of shabby looking.”

Cement gray

Color’s effect on expected home sale price: Decrease of $1,236, on average

The Zillow study participants were least likely to be interested in buying a home with a front door in this bland color.

Olive green

Color’s effect on expected home sale price: Increase of $969, on average

After spending the better part of the past couple of years indoors, we’ve all made this reminder of the outdoors a popular house paint color in general.

Paint brands PPG, Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore each named a similar shade of green their color of the year for 2022: Olive Sprig, Evergreen Fog and October Mist, respectively.

Slate blue

Color’s effect on expected home sale price: Increase of $1,537, on average

A door in this color made study participants most likely to want to purchase the home, Zillow found. If you want a safe return on investment, this seems to be your color. (The next color on this list offers a potentially bigger payoff but also more risk.)

Black

Color’s effect on expected home sale price: Increase of $6,449, on average

The Rolling Stones called it: Doors should be painted black. This color boosted home offers by the largest amount overall — although some people were very put off by the color.

This doesn’t seem to be a fluke. Zillow’s 2018 paint color study found that a black front door made a home worth $6,271 more — the biggest boost of four colors tested on four different areas of a home that year.

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