The Material Value of Color: The Estate Agent's Tale

This article is based on research of estate agents' advice to residential vendors and landlords in inner London. The article discusses the point when the potential value of the property is geared up for realization. In this process the value is assessed by the agent as lying in the “presentation” of the property. This is paradoxical in that the materiality of the dwelling where much of its agency lies, is idealized as “neutral.” Color devalues, or at least impedes the velocity of property exchanges. This article seeks to dissect the historiography of “neutrality,” the erasures and dematerialization it represents, and its effect on property as commodity and as fetish.