In article , Todd H. wrote:

Okay, you've never sold a house. Your relatively narrow view makes
more sense now.


You can assume that I have or haven't. I refuse to play that game. I made
a mistake of answering the first question. I will say that I am not the
one with a narrow view here.


What you're missing is that it's not about you. It's not about the
outlier datapoints. It's about what potential buyers as a whole will
think. And folks have a funny way of making up their own minds about
what sorts of things will turn them off of a given property, even if
they are two otherwise identical houses/neighborhoods.


You know as well as I do that the size location, size, and condition of
a house are the primary factors that influence its value. Now, you
can say that 'location' includes how many purple houses exist in an
area but the reality is that my neighborhood (with a few purple houses)
is valued pretty much the same as any other local neighborhood composed
of houses of similar size and condition. The palette of house colors isn't
really an issue. If a house is valued at $1.5 million and then suddenly
the house 3 blocks over is painted purple from beige do you honestly
think it will drop in value?! What if that house is 1 block over? 8 doors
over? Next door? I am waiting for you to produce the formula which shows
this as a function of distance!


And what's to prevent that purple house (with, say 2 families living
it with 5 cars, and an RV, and a boat in the driveway, from being next
door vs 5 houses away)? Absent municipal restrictions on exterior
paint (which seldom exist), and absent HOA covenants narrowing the
field to something approved by some sort of body, the answer is:
nothing.


My question is: Why do you care what color the house next door is?


The other problems (if you perceive them to be problems) can be handled
by municipal ordinances.


Now, try it with recent construction in the $400k range in the midwest
and see how many showings you get for the house next door, and what
the buyer feedback will be after the showing. If "I wonder if that
potential new neighbor is a wack job" isn't on their honest list of
ponderings, you'll have a lot of surprised experienced sellers here.


I think this has more to do with the conformist mentality of the people in the
Midwest. They might not like living next to Asian or Jewish people either.
I am not implying you (or they) are racist. I am just saying that people
in certain parts of the country get uneasy when confronted with new
things. It's why I don't live in an HOA in the Midwest. My California
sensibilities might lower their property values!


People who like to live like fearful sheep ever afraid of 'lowered property
values' seek out HOAs. The rest of us take 'em or leave 'em. Rest assured that
our property values are about the same as theirs in the end, though. It would
be an easier sell to say "We are in an HOA because we don't like people
who do things differently than we do" rather than trotting out the 'property
values' excuse.


Many years ago people in San Marino were afraid that Japanese families moving
in would 'lower their property values'. The reality is that those houses were
always expensive and still are based on the massive estates that predominate.
I think some of them might even be shades of purple. I think you are
overestimating how many would-be buyers really care about what color the
house 2 blocks over (or even next door) is. A nice, well-maintained house
is a nice, well-maintained house whether it is green, blue, beige, pink,
orange, or purple.


Dimitri