Paramount PMR Blog

Best Paint Colors for Your Rental Property

Paramount Management & Realty - Tuesday, March 22, 2022

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Is it time for a new coat of interior paint for your rental property? You may need to update the inside of your home to catch up to current trends, cover scuffs, or touch up repairs after your previous tenants left. 

Once you decide to repaint your rental property, you need to choose the color, finish, and color schemes for specific rooms. Choosing the best paint colors for your rental property can influence how quickly you rent your property when you have your real estate agent or property manager list it for rent. Many experts consider neutral tones the best option for rental homes, but it’s easy to interpret neutrals as boring for a living space.

The key to selecting the best paint colors for your rental property is to look at the space itself. Are there high ceilings? Does every doorway have a solid door to break up the room, or are several open doorways cut into long, flat walls? You should choose colors that make open spaces feel cozy and smaller rooms feel more spacious than they are.

It would help if you also considered the finish for the paint. Semi-gloss paints tend to cost a little more, but it’s well worth the investment in wet areas like kitchens and bathrooms.

Popular interior colors in 2022 include;

  • October Mist 1495 (Benjamin Moore Color of the Year 2022).

  • White Dove by Benjamin Moore, Feather Gray by Pratt & Lambert, and Farrow & Ball Drop Cloth. 

  • Light neutrals with hints of color are the trend this year and will likely remain popular for more years.


Add Appeal for Potential Future Renters

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Prospective renters want to picture themselves living in your rental home. If you try to show the house right after the previous tenants left, your prospective renters won’t get the opportunity to see your property at its most enticing.

Someone interested in renting your home wants to imagine what a space would look like with their furniture in place. Will their fluorescent orange sofa go with the khaki-colored walls in the living room? Probably not. But a light neutral or cool gray pairs well with nearly every other color.

It would help if you also repainted before showing a rental home to cover any signs of the previous tenants. Even a coat of white paint can hide many marks, scuffs, and dings.


Planning to Paint in Different Rooms

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Each room of a home has a specific purpose. Your future tenants will use the rooms of your property to meet particular lifestyle demands. Will they envision a life in your rental home if your home is entirely the same color? If your home boasts an open floor plan or features a long, unbroken wall, you can use different color schemes to divide the space.

If you paint the rest of the house light gray, and your home has a long, continuous wall, you may consider painting just that wall a slightly darker shade of that same gray to make it appear smaller in that space. This trick works particularly well with high ceilings.

Do you have an open floor plan with a walled dining room or den situated towards one side? If so, you can emphasize that separate space with a different color. You might consider a medium neutral tone that has a hint of color mixed in if you’re using a true neutral tone throughout your home, 

Is your rental property a small home, or are all the bedrooms located off a narrow central hallway? If so, you can use light and cool neutrals to reflect more light and make the space appear larger. Your local paint supplier can make additional recommendations for colors to provide special tricks for making your rental property seem interesting.


What Are the Best Paint Colors for Your Rental Property?

You have a wide selection of colors that have been popular in the last few years to make your color choice. You’ll need to consider the features of your home to decide on the best paint colors for your rental property, but you probably shouldn’t pick plain white walls.

Consider the following colors that have been popular recently:

  • Popular Gray by Sherwin Williams

  • October Mist 1495 by Benjamin Moore

  • Revere Pewter by Benjamin Moore

  • Perfectly Pale by Pantone

  • Kilim Beige by Sherwin Williams

  • Merino Wool by Behr

  • Gray Owl by Benjamin Moore

Light and medium grays have been trending in the last few years, although some beige tints usually enter the mix. Recently, a combination of gray and beige, often referred to as “greige,” has been popular with the gray, working to mute the warmth of the browns in the beige for a more neutral tone.


What Is Involved in Painting Your Rental Home?

Once you select your paint, you will need to prepare the workspace and the walls you will be painting. Be sure to repair any damage to the walls and clean the surface of any paint on the walls so that the new paint will stick better. Once you have finished the work to repaint, be sure to clean up and do a walkthrough to look for any tape or fixture covers that you missed.


Bottom Line

When choosing the best paint colors for your rental property, consider the space inside your rental property, the floor plan, and the trending paint colors of the last few years. Select a color that will meet the needs of your home and appeal to future renters. You could paint it yourself or hire a painting company. You may also pay a property management company to maintain the house.

Paramount Management & Realty is a full-service property management company that can help you manage your rental property without doing it yourself! Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you maintain your rental home.



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