I recently wrote a post 3 Simple Tips for Preparing Your Home to Sell and I talked about how a fresh coat of neutral paint could do wonders in presenting your home to potential  buyers.  As far as return on your dollar in selling your home, fresh paint can recoup you many times the cost spent on painting your home, especially if you do it yourself.

Tip: Paint with the flattest finish you can.

Unfortunately, I go into many homes, where, yes they have painted their walls but they used a high gloss finish!  The high gloss finish can create glare spots on the wall and can be very distracting, as well as the gloss finish will show off every little blemish in the wall.  The “fresh coat” coat of paint that was supposed to help sell your home now becomes a detraction.  Even when I photograph a home the glare on gloss walls cannot be controlled becoming a distracting highlight in the marketing photos of a home.

A flat finish can absorb, many blemishes and irregularities in the underlying surface.  A flat finish is by far the most forgiving finish.  While it is less durable then a glossier finish, remember you just want to show the home off it its best possible light.  As you can see in the sample below there is alternating stripes of flat versus glossy paint.  The imperfections in the flat finish are almost unnoticed.