What’s in a color

Did you know there is an entire segment of psychology devoted to color?

Color can dramatically affect moods according to experts in color psychology, so what effect does color have on the color of our homes? Apparently quite a bit.

Zillow, an online real estate database, did a 2018 paint color analysis revealing that colors can have a significant impact on a home’s sale price. The major and somewhat shocking discovery that came out of this analysis is that homes with black or charcoal gray front doors sell for $6,271 more. Interesting, but don’t tell that to the Chinese who consider red a lucky color frequently used on front doors. The Chinese study of Feng Sui teaches that good chi comes into a home through the front door, making lucky red front doors popular.

Coastal Living, an online magazine, has their own opinion about the color of front doors on the coast and none of them are black, gray or red. Here is what Coastal Living recommends: seafoam, Dutch blue, raspberry, blue-green, yellow, Capri blue,
white, tangerine orange, blue-grey, salmon and aqua.

Zillow’s study also discovered that light blue bathrooms can bring in an additional $2,786 and that red kitchens can take $2,310 off a home’s sale price. In addition, Zillow’s analysis reported that houses painted yellow or any hue of yellow on the exterior sold for $3,408 less.

Do we believe any of this? Maybe some of it, but isn’t the best front door one that blends in with the rest of the property, is clean and doesn’t need painting? What we do believe is its time for another three-month report of properties selling over $1 million dollars on the Island and in Cortez. This time we’re looking at February, March and April with closed properties compiled from the Manatee County Property Appraisers Office and available properties from Realtor.com as of this writing.

There were two closed properties for these three months for $1 million or over in the village of Cortez. One closed for $1,200,000 and the other closed for $1,379,000. The previous three-month analysis had no closings in this price range.

The city of Anna Maria had 14 closings for $1 million or over. The largest closed sale was for $4,350,000 and the smallest was $1,050,000. The previous three-month analysis was also 14 closed properties. Aside from the $4 million dollar closing, all the other closings were under $2 million.

The combined cities of Bradenton Beach and Holmes Beach had a total of 19 closed properties over $1 million. The highest sale was for $2,450,000, the lowest was for $1 million and there were four $2 million or over sales. The previous three-month analysis had seven properties selling for $1 million or over.

Currently available as of this writing in Cortez there are five properties between $1,500,000, which is residential land, and $1,100,000. The last time there were six in this price range available.

The city of Anna Maria has 60 properties on the market over $1 million ranging from $5,500,000 to $1,049,000. There are four over $4 million, six over $3 million and 17 over $2 million. The last analysis for Anna Maria had 58 properties available.

Finally, Holmes Beach and Bradenton Beach have a total of 68 properties $1 million or over, ranging from $6,200,000 to $1,025,000. There is one property listed over $5 million, three properties listed over $3 million and two properties listed over $2 million. The previous three months had 85 available properties.

I guess we should keep the color psychologists in business since they’ve gone to the trouble of telling us exactly what our mood should be based on color. According to them black represents unhappiness and red is excitement, but what do they know.