You love your house and it’s been your family home for years. Now you’re looking at selling and downgrading but your real estate agent tells you that your exterior paint needs to be replaced in order to increase your curb appeal to prospective homebuyers. You think your home’s exterior is in pretty good shape. How can you tell whether or not you really need new exterior paint? Here are three major signs to look for:

Blistering or Bubbling

Do you notice any bumps in your exterior walls? These little bumps form when the adhesive material within the paint itself isn’t bonding properly to the wall anymore. Bubbling is a fairly common problem for exterior paint and often happens when the surface the paint is applied to is too hot, preventing it from adhering properly.

If you notice any bubbles in your exterior paint, it’s best to scrap off the old coat of paint and start fresh. By applying paint correctly, you can avoid blistering and have a smooth even finish for years to come.

Peeling Paint

When blistering paint isn’t addressed, it will eventually progress to peeling and chipping paint. Paint that is peeling or chipping off the surface tends to look unclean and makes your home look old, dated and run down. Before you can repaint your home’s exterior, you’ll need to remove as much of the loose paint and chips as possible so that the new paint can bond to the surface of your home and avoid the same problem from occuring down the road.

Fading paint

Your home’s exterior absorbs everything that mother nature throws at it. One of the harshest elements that your home’s exterior has to face are the ultra violet rays from the sun. Over time, these UV rays will cause the colour of your paint to dull or fade. If you spend a lot of time outdoors, it can be difficult to tell how much of your paint has faded which is where a professional set of eyes comes in handy. Some shades and colours are much easier to see fading than others.

In some cases, sunlight can actually cause a chemical reacton in your paint known as “chalking”. This is when your walls have a powdery white film on them. Before a new coat of paint can be applied to your home’s exterior, this chemical layer needs to be removed professionally to ensure that the new paint is able to stick to the walls as it was intended to.

If you want to get the best possible offers for your home, you need to present your home in the best way possible. Having fresh paint on the exterior or interior of your home can potentially get you better offers. Take a look at your home’s interior painting and exterior painting for these telltale signs and get them fixed as soon as possible.