How to Incorporate Color Into Your Community
Tips and tricks to help with your apartment staging and marketing.
Blue Nova. Upward. Peach Fuzz.
These words may mean nothing to you, but interior designers will recognize them as the 2024 “Colors of the Year” by Benjamin Moore, Sherwin-Williams and Pantone, respectively.
How important is color to the success of a multifamily community? Just ask Lisa Gunderson, vice president of asset management for Bristol Development Group in Franklin, Tenn. Years ago, prior to joining Bristol, Gunderson was working on a repositioning project. “The principal was color blind, but he loved to choose exterior colors,” she said. “This created some problems.”
That included a community in Savannah, Ga., that ended up a color she describes as “Big Bird Yellow.” “People were talking about it, but not in a positive way,” Gunderson said. “It made leasing more challenging. There can be negative connotations around something that’s outrageous or trendy.”
Indeed, apartment professionals vary in their approach to trends like paint colors of the year. Some, like Gunderson, go for a more timeless design on-site but get creative with marketing and branding materials. Others focus on data and demographics to determine the best colors.
“As designers, we do track trends such as colors of the year, but we wouldn’t incorporate a color into a multifamily project simply because it made one of those lists,” said Mary Cook, founder & president of Mary Cook Associates. “Instead, we focus on color choices that align with our researched, data-driven criteria, which a color of the year may or may not do.”
Yoon Park, vice president of design for AvalonBay Communities, says she monitors color trends but observes how those colors are incorporated into consumer goods and fashion. “Products have the ability to incorporate colors pretty quickly, whereas with real estate it’s a long-term thing,” she said. “From the time we start the design of a new development until the project is completed, it’s a minimum of three years, so we always have to plan ahead. It’s the continuous monitoring of lifestyle trends that leads us to color decisions.”
Color Matters
Choosing the correct on-site colors is critical. After all, the cost of correcting a mistake—and having to repaint an entire community—is substantial.
Tiffany Bailey, an interior designer at Cortland Design, an interior and architectural design firm, said she pays attention to trends like the colors of the year, but doesn’t let them dictate what she does. “We renovate our communities roughly every seven years, so our schemes have to feel current without being too trendy,” she said. “Rather than painting an entire room one trendy color, we would use accents of that color paired with other evergreen colors to ensure the community feels on trend while still being timeless.”
Location Often Drives Color Choices
Many apartment developers and operators base their color schemes on influences from the local market.
At Titan Development’s Zocalo community in Santa Fe, N.M., the team selected an exterior color scheme that was responsive to local trends and preferences, with a palette of earth tones ranging from a rich persimmon to a subdued ochre. The interior courtyards, however, were painted bright colors. “These courtyards face the interior of the project and are almost impossible to notice from nearby major roads, yet for residents these are an essential and iconic part of the project,” said Ian Robertson, Titan’s director of development.
But color can also be used to differentiate a community from its competition. While many communities near the coast have a beachy vibe, with calming colors like green and blue, The Breeden Co. decided to be different at its Pinnacle on 31st Street project on the ocean in Virginia Beach, Va. The project is located in an artistic district, so it’s decked out in bold colors including purple, red and orange. “It makes it stand out,” said Christine Gustafson, the firm’s vice president of marketing. “While the bold colors are strong, in this case it works to our benefit. It’s all about sex appeal and being at the coolest place.”
Age Matters
Community colors are chosen to appeal to the target renter for the community. What colors can you select that will evoke warm feelings of “home” in your target resident?
Those feelings vary based on the age of the renter you’re trying to attract. “Age always plays a role,” said Gustafson. “I use a lot of reds if there is a submarket with an older demographic, and I increase my font size too.”
Similarly, student-housing marketers use color to target younger residents. “School colors are a deep-rooted source of academic pride and almost never change,” said Alison Mills, vice president of design and development at CRG, a national real estate development and investment firm. “Our challenge lies in finding tasteful ways to incorporate these vibrant, bold colors in a residential setting.”
At the firm’s Chapter at Madison community, CRG incorporated the University of Wisconsin’s cardinal and white colors by infusing an array of rich reds into the wall panels, furnishings and accent pillows. Complementary black and white tones were used in the lighting, area rugs and floors, creating balance.
Don’t Forget About Marketing Collateral
Color choices should be part of a comprehensive marketing and branding strategy established for a property, and many times a mood board will be created to set the tone for the community after all stakeholders have had input.
Some apartment marketers use the marketing materials as a way to incorporate trendy colors, while keeping the on-site structure more evergreen. Others select complementary colors for the marketing collateral and website.
“We don’t want it to look matchy-matchy, but we don’t want it to be a mish-mash either,” said Tammy Casserly, senior vice president of growth and brand development for Resident360, a multifamily branding and marketing agency. “There should be a comprehensive plan so that if people come to your website looking for an apartment, and the colors paint a picture and make them feel a certain way, they don’t go to the property and go ‘whoa.’” At Church and Henley, a mid-rise community in Knoxville, Tenn., Bristol Development used tones of gray and olive green in the marketing materials to evoke a warm, homey feeling in prospective residents. But at the community, they wowed with trendy colors. While the exteriors are traditional, painted in brown, gray and blue, the inner hallways are pink to reflect the art-deco inspiration of the community design. And the project is thriving, despite its bold use of color. “The residents love everything we have to offer, and we get the highest rents by far in the market,” said Gunderson.
