Does colour change what a used car or a house sells for?

Used cars: the ranking depends on the kind of car

iSeeCars compared the asking prices of more than 1.2 million model-year 2022 used cars, listed in the United States between August 2024 and May 2025, with their original list prices adjusted for inflation. Across all vehicles the average three-year loss was 31.0%, yellow lost least at 24.0% and gold most at 34.4%, with white and black slightly worse than average. Split by segment, the picture stops being a property of the colour. Green is the best colour for minivans (15.3% against a segment average of 40.9%) and for pickups is second best, but for saloons it is second worst at 33.8%. Silver is better than average on saloons and the worst colour for convertibles at 39.5%. White is the worst colour for minivans and coupés. The company notes that the spread between colours was 12.4 percentage points in 2023 and 10.4 in 2025, so the size of the effect moves from year to year as well.

Why a difference between colours is not the effect of the colour

Three things stand between these numbers and a claim about cause. First, colour is tied to model. Yellow and orange are offered mainly on sports cars and performance trims, which hold value for other reasons; the study says only 0.4% of pickups are orange, largely special high-performance versions. Averaging by colour therefore averages different cars. Second, the prices are asking prices on a listings site, not what buyers paid. Third, the publisher's own reading is about scarcity, not appeal: its analyst describes the best colours as having more demand than supply, and white and black as so common that they give a seller nothing to distinguish the car. That is an explanation offered with the data, not something the data tests. A study that compared identical models, trims and mileages in different colours would be needed to isolate colour, and none has been published.

Houses: two different kinds of study under one name

Zillow's annual 'paint colour analysis' is the source of most claims that a colour adds or removes thousands of dollars. The 2017 and 2018 editions were observational: more than 32,000 and then more than 135,000 listing photographs of homes sold since 2010 were tagged by room colour, and the sale price was compared with the company's own automated estimate for homes with white walls, controlling for floor area, age and location. Both releases say the effects may not reflect a causal difference in value. From 2021 the method changed completely. The figures now come from surveys in which recent or prospective buyers are shown images of a room in a randomly assigned colour and asked how much they would pay; the percentage is then multiplied by a typical US home value. The 2021 study had 1,295 respondents, and later ones more than 4,000. These measure stated preference for a photograph, not sales.

The editions disagree with each other

Read side by side, the releases do not describe a stable market. A light blue bathroom was associated with $5,440 above the estimate in 2017 and $2,786 in 2018, when the sample was four times larger. A terracotta dining room was marked down by $2,031 in 2017, and a terracotta bathroom was worth +$1,624 in the 2023 survey. A black or charcoal front door led the 2018 table at +$6,271; in 2023 a cement grey front door was marked down by $3,365. White was penalised in bathrooms in 2017 and in kitchens in 2023, yet white walls are the baseline of the observational editions. Some of this is fashion genuinely changing, and some is what small effects estimated from tagged photographs or image surveys look like when repeated. Either way a figure from one edition is not a forecast for a home sold in another year, another country or another price band.

What would count as evidence

A convincing answer would come from transaction prices, with the same model of car or comparable houses, the colour recorded independently, and other features controlled for — a hedonic price study — preferably repeated in more than one market. For cars the nearest thing is the listings analysis above; for house paint Colourwise found no peer-reviewed study of that kind. The practical reading is modest. Colour is correlated with price in both markets by a few per cent at most, the direction depends on the type of vehicle or room and on the year, and unusual colours do well where they are scarce. None of this is advice to buy, sell or repaint: the studies describe averages in the United States and cannot say what one car or one house will fetch.

The data

How to check it yourself

1. Find the method paragraph: is the figure from sale prices, asking prices or a survey of what people say they would pay?
2. Check what the comparison is — an average of all cars, the publisher's own estimate, or white walls.
3. Look for a breakdown by model, segment or room; if the ranking changes between them, colour is standing in for something else.
4. Check the country and the year, and whether a second edition of the same study gives the same answer.
5. For a specific car, compare current listings of the same model, age and mileage in different colours instead of relying on a national average.

What the evidence says

Each statement is labelled by kind — established fact, a standard’s requirement, observed market data, a convention, or Colourwise’s own interpretation or analysis — with the strength of the evidence behind it.

• Observed market dataModerate evidence· United States· 2022–2025

  In iSeeCars' 2025 study green was the colour with the lowest three-year depreciation among minivans (15.3% against a 40.9% segment average) and the second highest among saloons (33.8% against 29.9%).

  Measured: Model-year 2022 used cars listed on iSeeCars, August 2024–May 2025, by body style. Method: Inflation-adjusted list price compared with asking price, aggregated by colour and body style

  Caveat: Asking prices, not sale prices; colour is confounded with model and trim, and segment samples for rare colours are small and not reported.

  Source: Car colour depreciation study (model-year 2022 used cars)

• Observed market dataModerate evidence· United States· 2023 and 2025

  The same publisher reports that the gap between the best and worst colours was 12.4 percentage points of depreciation in June 2023 and 10.4 points in 2025.

  Measured: Three-year-old used cars listed on iSeeCars.

  Caveat: The 2023 figure is quoted in the 2025 release; the earlier study itself was not re-read.

  Source: Car colour depreciation study (model-year 2022 used cars)

• Observed market dataModerate evidence· United States· 2010–2018

  Zillow's 2017 and 2018 paint colour analyses compared the sale price of homes in more than 32,000 and more than 135,000 listing photos with the company's own value estimate, relative to homes with white walls, and both state that the effects may not reflect a causal difference.

  Measured: Homes sold between 2010 and early 2017 (first edition) or May 2018 (second) with listing photographs. Method: Sale price against automated estimate, controlling for other wall colours, floor area, age and location

  Caveat: The benchmark is the publisher's own model, the colour-tagging method is unpublished, and wall colour may stand in for renovation or staging.

  Source: Homes with Blue Bathrooms Sell for $5,400 More than Expected; Homes with Tuxedo Kitchen Cabinets and Black Front Doors Can Sell Up to $6,000 More than Expected

• Observed market dataModerate evidence· United States· 2021–2026

  From 2021 the Zillow figures come from surveys in which recent or prospective buyers (1,295 in 2021; more than 4,700 in 2023; more than 4,400 in 2026) are shown images in randomly assigned colours and asked what they would pay.

  Measured: Adults who had recently bought a home or planned to. Method: Randomised image survey; stated willingness to pay scaled to a typical home value

  Caveat: Stated preference for an image is not a sale price; the dollar figures are a percentage multiplied by an assumed home value.

  Source: Homes With Light Blue Bathrooms, Dark Blue Bedrooms Could Sell for Up to $4,698 More Than Expected; Design goes dark: Buyers pay more for homes painted in moody hues; The retro bedroom color that adds $2,277 to your home's value, according to Zillow

• Colourwise interpretationLimited evidence

  The published car and house studies show correlations of a few per cent that change direction between vehicle types, rooms and years; they do not establish that changing a colour changes a price.

  Based on: Colourwise's comparison of the segment tables in the iSeeCars study and of five editions of the Zillow analysis, set out in the tables on this page.

  Caveat: All the evidence is from the United States and from commercial publishers; no controlled or peer-reviewed study was found to test it against.

Related questions

Why would a rare colour hold its value better than a popular one?

The study's own explanation is supply: few yellow or orange cars are built, so a buyer who wants one has little choice, while white and black cars are plentiful and compete on price. The data show the pattern but do not test that explanation.

Do neutral walls really help a house sell?

No published study measures it directly. The early Zillow analyses linked some pale, cool wall colours to prices above the company's estimate and others below it, and the later ones are surveys. The advice is common; the measured support is thin and inconsistent.

Are the car colour depreciation figures valid outside the United States?

They should not be assumed to be. The study covers US listings, US model ranges and US tastes. Other markets have different colour mixes and segments, and Colourwise has not found an equivalent published analysis for the UK or Europe.

Is a survey of buyers shown room photos useless?

No, it measures something real: how people react to a colour in a listing image, with colours assigned at random. What it cannot show is that the same reaction survives a viewing, a negotiation and a mortgage valuation as a change in the price paid.

Related topics

Go further

Sources

• Car colour depreciation study (model-year 2022 used cars) — iSeeCars (Industry dataset)
• Homes with Blue Bathrooms Sell for $5,400 More than Expected — Zillow (press release) (Industry dataset)
• Homes with Tuxedo Kitchen Cabinets and Black Front Doors Can Sell Up to $6,000 More than Expected — Zillow (press release) (Industry dataset)
• Homes With Light Blue Bathrooms, Dark Blue Bedrooms Could Sell for Up to $4,698 More Than Expected — Zillow (press release) (Industry dataset)
• Design goes dark: Buyers pay more for homes painted in moody hues — Zillow (press release) (Industry dataset)
• The retro bedroom color that adds $2,277 to your home's value, according to Zillow — Zillow (press release) (Industry dataset)

Reviewed 1 October 2026. Colourwise summarises its sources in its own words and does not reproduce standards text or proprietary colour data. Spotted an error? Tell us.