I Asked 5 Experts the Paint Colors That Buyers Hate, and They All Basically Said the Same Thing

If you’re putting your home on the market, you’ve probably heard endless advice about how to set yourself up for success — from how to stage your home, to rules about how empty to keep storage spaces, to guidelines about paint colors. Unsurprisingly, the colors of your home — from the living room to the bedroom to the exterior brick — are a big deal to potential buyers, and it’s one that real estate professionals may harp on again and again, to the point of annoyance.

But how important is it really to repaint your lovely pink bedroom to an austere white just to lure in potential buyers? Do you really need to get rid of your floral-wallpapered bathroom or deep blue bedroom just to entice someone who may, or may not buy your home?

To get a sense of what paint colors are truly a problem for buyers, a handful of real estate agents and design experts have revealed what colors make buyers instantly walk away from a property. All of the experts picked intense colors — bright, deep, and dark ones.

Purple is, no doubt, having a paint-color moment right now. PPG’s 2025 color of the year is Purple Basil, a deep, rich shade that’s not “in-your-face” but skews more toward an eggplant hue. Two years ago, Worth Global Style Network (WGSN) predicted the 2025 Pantone color of the year would be Future Dusk, another purple hue. Pantone hasn’t announced their COTYfor 2025 yet, but the WGN brags a 90% accuracy rate, so it’s definitely possible that it’ll come true.

In any case, even though the color may be ultra trendy, multiple experts say that purple can be very polarizing in the home, especially depending on the hue or shade of the purple itself.

“My buyers will often nearly shut down at the thought of any deep red, blue, or purple colors,” says Nikki Beachamp, an associate broker at Sotheby’s in New York City. As soon as they see it, she says “they start to think of the process of neutralizing it. The colors are so overpowering to them visually it makes it hard for them to envision with a blank slate.” 

Anna Tatsioni, a lead interior designer & architect at Decorilla in New York City, agrees that purple can turn people off. “One color that consistently makes buyers hesitate is a deep, dark purple,” she says. “I remember a particular project where we were helping a client stage their home for sale. The master bedroom was painted in a rich eggplant shade. The homeowner loved it, but potential buyers couldn’t see past it. We had multiple instances where people walked in, took one look at the purple walls, and immediately lost interest in the rest of the house. It was as if they couldn’t imagine the space in any other color.”

Though black is a dramatic shade that can add dimension and style to many spaces, and it’s no secret that big, bold use of color is becoming more and more common in homes at the moment, it’s also true that black is quite polarizing — and not everyone is going to like it. 

“While there are exceptions, black is often seen as the opposite of possibility. If whites and light neutrals represent opportunity and open potential, black signifies a decision — a sense of finality. When shopping for property, you want the feeling of endless possibilities for the future you will create, rather than one that is already defined,” Heather T. Roy and Learka Bosnak, real estate agents with Douglas Elliman, say. 

“Just recently, we went through a charming house with a client who couldn’t focus on anything because they were so distracted by the paint color and wallpaper choices,” they added. “Pops of color, little splashes of cool wallpaper can be great but this was like the owner was telling us a loud story about themselves without even being there. … Plus, the house was priced as ‘designer done’ so they’d be paying for all those choices and then having to spend money to change them.”

Neon green, the official color of Brat Summer, came up time and time again. Tatsioni calls it “problematic,” noting that she “once toured a home with a client who was initially very excited about the property. However, when we entered the living room, which was painted in an intense lime green, my client visibly recoiled. She couldn’t get past the color, saying it made her feel ‘on edge’ and ‘anxious.’ Despite the home’s other great features, she decided not to pursue it further, purely because of that green living room.”

Matthew Coates, a Bainbridge Island architect, says neon anything is a problem — “When it comes to the two colors you say an astounding no thanks [to], it’s bright orange or neon green. They are so intense, and it is difficult to imagine living with them. You know they are just paint, technically easy to change, but buyers can’t get past them.”

Similar to deep purple and black, red is a dramatic hue that is genuinely having a moment.  Behr’s 2025 paint color of the year, for example, is Rumors, a deep red that’s earthy and gorgeous. However, red, especially when it’s in a primary tone, can be a huge turnoff.

“Even though reds have come and gone several times when it comes to trending paint colors, many buyers feel that colors like bright reds are too much. Too much to look at and too hard to paint over. In this real estate world where people are paying more for homes, they don’t want to do the work of covering hard to cover paint colors like reds and dark or bright blues,” says Haley Bartlett, a licensed Realtor in Northern Colorado. 

Beauchamp also points to “red” as “overpowering.” 

At the end of the day, the paint color you choose for your home is yours — so if you want an all black and neon green home, that’s all you. Plus, buyers might struggle to look past paint colors, but you can always offer repainting the space as a concession, if it’s holding them up on your home.

This post originally appeared on Apartment Therapy. See it there: I Asked 5 Experts The Paint Colors That Buyers Hate, and They All Basically Said the Same Thing