How to select interior and exterior paint colors for your rental property

Investment properties must appeal to a wide variety of audiences. Colors preference is subjective. By choosing neutral colors and easy to clean finishes, your rental property can appeal to a broad audience. We share some tips on how best to do this.

First, let’s look at why color matters. A fresh coat of paint immediately spruces up the house. The paint color of the rental home is one of the important marketing decisions you will make. Color plays a huge role in people’s emotions. Worst case, it can trigger negative emotions. You want a color that provides a positive or neutral experience so that you can quickly rent the house to the right tenants. While color preferences can be subjective, neutral colors work well and offer safer bets. A nice coat of paint in a calming color can make your place welcoming.

How many paint colors should you use in the investment property? Should you paint different rooms in different colors? For rental properties, we recommend just one color for the entire house. This keeps things simple and makes the house look unified. It is also easy for you to touch up the house when needed. In fact, we recommend that you take this a step further and just use one color for all your rental properties.

Okay, you get the picture. So, how do you go about picking the paint color when the choices are endless? Here are a few things to keep in mind:

The same color will appear different in different lights in the same room. Also, the same color will appear different in different rooms in the same light, depending on the window placements. We recommend that you pick a color that works for a major part of the house – say at least 80% and just use it on all the walls. Paint the ceiling white.

What colors are good for investment properties? Well, you want the rental home to be warm and inviting to prospective tenants. While white has been on trend for a while. While white is a classic color, pure white makes a place stark and shows all the dirt. On the other hand, gray is a tricky color – it can leave a place feeling cold. We recommend choosing colors with high Light Reflection Value (LRV). Here are some recommended colors:

• Sherwin-Williams Shoji White (SW 7042)
• Benjamin Moore Muslin (1037, OC-17)
• Kelly Moore San Francisco Fog (KM5822)
• Kelly Moore Swiss Coffee white (23) for trims and ceilings

You are probably thinking that these colors don’t look trendy. Every year Pantone names a color of the year. If you are wondering about hopping on to trends for your rental home, note that designers have flocked to gray for a few years and now to white. Some designers are even returning to beige. We say, just stick with the classics and keep it simple for the rentals. Save the trends for your primary residence.

Once you finalize the paint color, it’s time to select the paint finishes. Different finishes reflect light differently, but they also determine if you can simply wipe off dirt or if you need to repaint. It gets progressively easier to clean from eggshell or higher sheens. We recommend the following finishes:

• Satin finish for the rooms and walls
• Semi-gloss or gloss for kitchen and bath
• Eggshell or satin for ceilings. Keep them white.
• Semigloss for baseboard and crown molding. Keep them white.

Regardless of the brand of paint you select, other vendors can match the same color if you provide the color code. You want a paint that offers the best coverage with fewer coats – this reduces total cost and time. It helps to quick turnaround a place for the next tenant.

You get the idea for the interior of the house. How about the exterior of the house? The color of the exterior should resonate with the neighborhood. You don’t want yours to be the only house with a strong magenta color on the exterior. Rental properties may be vacant between tenants and you don’t want your house to catch the attention of a troublemaker.

We recommend using a few different colors on the exterior of multi-family homes to break up the monotony. Instead of painting the entire community in one color, adding some variations provides interest and depth. Many paint vendors offer recommendations for multi-unit residences and condominiums.

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