The house color that tells you when a neighborhood is gentrifying

If you live in an American city, chances are you have seen this house:

Its exterior is gray with monochromatic accents.

Maybe there’s a pop of color — a red, blue or yellow door.

The landscaping is restrained, all clean lines and neat minimalism.

Sleek metal address numbers appear crisp in a modern sans-serif font.

Some might call it elegant, others boring. The look itself is purposely unremarkable. Real estate agents and paint companies use words such as “quiet,” “calm” and “neutral” to describe it.

But many longtime city dwellers see this physical transformation of residences to muted tones and know what they signal: demographic, social and economic change.

Rowhouses in D.C., craftsmans in Nashville, Victorian-style homes in San Francisco and many other styles of houses in gentrifying neighborhoods across the country have increasingly been stripped of their colors and painted shades of gray, altering the aesthetics of American cities.

In some neighborhoods, the grayification of homes has been swift and stark — and the cause of conflicts.

In the nation’s capital, residents have seen the change steadily sweeping their communities lot by lot: A neighbor’s red-brick rowhouse goes up for sale with a fresh coat of paint. A residential block that once had vivid murals painted on the sides of buildings begins to look less colorful, more monochrome.

A Washington Post color analysis of the District found that in neighborhoods where other markers of gentrification have spiked over the past decade — increased home prices, more noise complaints and the displacement of Black residents — the number of gray homes has notably increased. The analysis looked at houses that were newly built or built on lots where houses had been torn down. Homes that might have once been painted reds, yellows and browns have given way to houses in hues that range from Shark Fin to Deep Space. Pictures of homes analyzed by the Post were collected using Google Street View Static images and analyzed to find the most common colors represented across homes by ward. The analysis allowed tints and shades of colors to be grouped into color families.

Cities over the past two decades have been transformed by demographic change that has remade the way urban centers are planned, operated and perceived. An influx of affluent and predominantly white residents moving to inner-city neighborhoods has flipped the defining 20th-century phenomenon of white flight on its head and, in cities such as D.C., has changed the makeup of neighborhoods that were once majority — and, in some cases, almost exclusively — Black. While these shifts have led to greater diversity and affluence and, in some cases, improved neighborhood amenities, they have also brought in new concerns and an unspoken question among longtime residents: Do I still belong?

As of 2023, the most recent year for which national Census Bureau data estimates are available, about 33 percent of the District’s homeowners identified as Black. That’s a notable drop from more than a decade earlier, in 2010, when nearly 45 percent of homeowners did.

Meanwhile, white homeownership rates in the city have continued to climb. In 2023, white residents accounted for 51 percent of D.C. homeowners, up from about 48 percent in 2010, census estimates show.

Academics who study gentrification and its visual markers say the aesthetics of gray, modern homes serve as a strategic lure.

“It all comes down to this perception of wealth and luxury, this idea that neutrals indicate status — painted brick takes more to upkeep than regular brick. If you have a light-gray or white house, it signals you can afford to keep it clean,” said Libby Rasmussen, a color enthusiast who lives in the District and owns Libby & My, a home decor company, and the city’s largest vintage store, Vintage Vintage Vintage.

“Black homeownership in D.C. has been shrinking for years, which means the very culture of these neighborhoods has been changing,” said Rasmussen, who is white. “When we see house flippers try to take color out of a house, or a neighborhood, they’re making it more palatable to mostly white people.”

In interviews with nearly a dozen D.C. natives, opinions about the proliferation of these gray houses — and the changes that have accompanied them — were mixed. Many highlighted the pluses of a diversifying neighborhood and how things have improved since more affluent residents moved in next door: The city seems more responsive to neighborhood issues, the streets are cleaner, and the value of their own homes has increased. But some pointed to changes that made them feel, at times, uncomfortable in places where they have lived for decades.

Peggy Lovett, 59, is a D.C. native who lives on a short block tucked inside Eckington, a hilly, largely residential community with homes from the late 19th century. The area is dotted with churches and mom-and-pop businesses, and the bustle of North Capitol Street, one of the city’s main arteries, is close by.

Lovett, who is Black, has seen the District transform many times over, but her neighborhood had remained a relative constant. That is, until the pandemic hit. Soon, she said, the houses along her slice of Eckington, a majority-Black neighborhood, began to look different. Her red-painted home used to be the norm. Now, its vividness stands out.

“Majority of these houses down here used to be red — different shades of red or something bright; the house across the street was a lime green,” Lovett said. “Now, they have these houses that are black and white, gray, all these colors that were never around here.”

She and some of her longtime neighbors have come to see that gray as offering a clue about whom they might find on the inside.

“I see a house going up that’s that color, and I know they have money,” said Lovett. “It’s a great big change, but it’s not just in my neighborhood — D.C. has really been changing.”

The Black population in the part of Eckington where Lovett resides dropped from 97 percent in 1990 to 40 percent in 2023, according to census data. Over the same period, the percentages of white, Hispanic and Asian residents all rose, though the gain made by white people was the most significant. They went from making up about 2 percent of the community in 1990 to about 39 percent in 2023.

The area has also become markedly more wealthy. Average monthly wages have increased from $5,700 in 2005 to $9,400 in 2023, according to inflation-adjusted workforce data from the Census Bureau.

For Lovett, the transformation has brought a mixed bag of experiences: Neighborhood nuisances such as neglected alleyways, trash-littered streets and petty crime have decreased. But issues of racial profiling and mistaken identity — problems that were less common when her block was nearly all Black, Lovett said — have increased.

Like the time Lovett’s son moved some old furniture onto the sidewalk in front of her home for bulk-trash pickup, she recalled, and a neighbor called the police, believing the Black man she saw outside was settling in to stay on the sidewalk.

Or the time, Lovett said, a different neighbor filed a complaint with D.C. code inspectors about Lovett’s worn-out porch instead of talking to her directly.

“If you have a concern, you should go to your neighbor,” Lovett said. “That’s how I was raised to act — like a good neighbor.”

Ward 5, which encompasses Eckington and surrounding neighborhoods, is one of the areas where the most significant visual change has occurred, according to the Post’s ward-by-ward color analysis. What were once warm tones of browns and reds have given way to grays, gray-blues, blacks and whites.

While gray-washed homes have proliferated across neighborhoods in Northwest Washington over the past decade, data shows this look has also begun to seep into Wards 7 and 8, where new developments and home renovations have increased.

“The concept of a post-race America is tied up in these aesthetics. It’s sort of a ‘Everyone is welcome here, and no one should feel uncomfortable if the aesthetic is uniform.’ Gray is a way to flatten difference,” said Brandi T. Summers, an associate professor of African American and African diaspora studies at Columbia University and the author of “Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of Race in a Post-Chocolate City.”

“But when you create an aesthetic that is supposed to be minimalist and monocultural, it extinguishes difference,” Summers added. “It doesn’t allow different people from different cultures to actually be different.”

D.C. real estate agent Ileann Jimenez-Sepulveda remembers selling homes that used to be more earthy in color. More reds and greens. More warm, wood accents. More color in general.

It wasn’t until a few years ago, around the start of the pandemic, that Jimenez-Sepulveda began to notice how much the housing market had shifted, she said. In magazines and on social media, the homes she saw all seemed to have the same, sleek look: They were painted in neutrals — black or white or gray — and had modern features. Metal accents. Sharp lines.

“I was seeing homes like that not just here but in Texas, in the Midwest, in Arizona, in Utah; it was everywhere, and it’s still ongoing,” she said, recalling a particular shade she saw featured called Rodeo that is beige with a hint of gray.

Evaluating what’s selling in other cities — and what buyers are drawn to in her own market — helps Jimenez-Sepulveda and other real estate agents determine what advice to give clients looking to sell their homes. These days, one of the most common pieces of advice she doles out is this: Paint your house.

“Sometimes we have sellers tell us that they just painted five years ago and they don’t need to repaint,” she said. “But if you’re trying to sell an outdated-looking home, you’re just not going to have as much success.”

To persuade reluctant clients, she and other real estate agents prepare what they call comparative analyses. These data-rich handouts pull from previous property deals to make the case for updating the look of a home.

In at least one case, Jimenez-Sepulveda said, changing the aesthetics and colors of the home probably contributed to a sale price of more than $100,000 over another, similar property whose owners declined to make similar changes.

Home-listing giant Zillow, which conducted a survey among 4,600 recent and prospective home buyers across the country in 2023, found darker shades eclipsed brighter colors for the first time following the explosion of home sales in 2020 and 2021.

A company spokesperson said these hues are often seen as peaceful, quiet, a “retreat.” Amid the chaos of the pandemic, people were pulled toward simplicity, paint companies and those who closely follow color trends said.

The desire for peace is reflected in noise-complaint numbers the Post collected. Data from D.C. shows that noise complaints for 2019 through 2023 are concentrated in areas that are largely considered the city’s most gentrified neighborhoods.

In San Francisco, where homes are known for their color, the gray wave triggered backlash from longtime residents and appreciators of the city’s classic motif — most famously encapsulated by the Painted Ladies, a row of colorful Victorian houses included in the opening credits of the sitcom “Full House.”

Few neighborhoods in San Francisco have experienced the shift to gray more starkly than the city’s historic Latino district, the Mission.

Richard Segovia, 71, who has lived in the Mission District his whole life, steps outside of his brightly colored house every day and surveys how the neighborhood has continued to morph around him.

“All this gray — it’s so dark, it’s so gloomy, so ugly. It’s like seeing creativity and art and the colors of my community disappear right in front of my eyes,” said Segovia, a musician who painted a mural honoring Latin rock pioneers on his home.

“We’re used to bright houses — yellow houses, green, the whole river of colors, like Carlos Santana used to say,” he said. “But now you look around, and it’s gray, gray, gray, white, gray. The real estate agents are pushing these new colors that aren’t even colors to send a message: New people are moving in, and they’re not like us.”

Sergio De La Torre, a professor at the University of San Francisco, has data to back this up. He and his students mapped gray houses in the Mission and, he said, documented a correlation between gray houses and rising police calls and immigration raids.

“The gray houses have become a symbol of this muteness, this quiet, humble, nothing-is-happening-here,” said De La Torre, who is also an artist. “When you paint a house gray, you’re covering up its history, its memory. You’re starting over. We can be modern now, we can be cool.”

Gray homes are also being built in midsize cities such as Nashville, where development is driving population shifts. Houses are being flipped — torn down and rebuilt or renovated with a new coat of paint — in cities, such as Chicago, with older housing stock and a changing residential base.

Trends around home exteriors tend to shift in roughly 15-year cycles, experts said, noting the gray-homes trend is nearing its expiration — but the colors that appear to be rising to replace it are variations on the monochromatic theme.

Julie Elrod, the director of business development in painting services for Ace Hardware Painting Services, said whites and blacks have been steadily growing in popularity as home aesthetics lean further into sharp contrasts and the more modern look that began with the tilt toward gray.

“We’re seeing a lot of white modern looks with stark black accents; I have a friend who calls those ‘stormtrooper houses,’” said Elrod. “It’s still that same desire for a clean aesthetic. It’s modern, it’s easy. In contrast, the other trend we’re seeing is people painting their homes charcoal or black.”

Rasmussen, the color enthusiast, has been on the hunt for a house in D.C. She dreams of a brightly colored home: a bright pink, she mused, or maybe canary yellow.

“When I see a house that hasn’t been flipped, when I see a green house or a red house, my heart gets really happy,” she said.

But “turnkey” houses, or those that are move-in ready, with little to no additional renovations required — ideal for many first-time home buyers — tend to hew more closely to what real estate agents say is most likely to sell.

The reality, she knows, is this: She’s probably going to end up in a gray house.

The Washington Post used D.C. building permit data to find homes built within the past seven years. Those addresses were geocoded, and images were found using a combination of D.C. street images and Google Street View Static API. Each image was manually checked to ensure a usable image was analyzed. Using R programming, those images were then cropped and the color pixels of each home were extracted and analyzed using a k-means clustering method of analysis. The analysis allowed for various tints and shades of colors to be grouped into a base color. Using the base color and frequency of pixels, the Post selected the dominant colors from each ward from recently built homes. Efforts to reduce color contamination include cropping the images into the center of the homes to remove images from the background and foreground such as the sky, trees, cars and other homes.