Is location still the most important thing? Should you remodel your home to suit your taste or for resale value? Are entry-level homes still in? We all have a lot of questions about the ever-changing world of real estate. In our Ask an agent series, we partner with experts from Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate to answer your top questions about finding, buying and selling a home.

Owning your own home brings a lot of freedom: you can finally decorate how you want! You can change more about your space than just hanging a few photos! But with that freedom comes new pressures. Your home is not just the place you live now – it is a investmentAnd to protect your investment and ensure it is profitable, you need to consider how each of your decisions will affect the value of your home.

Experts have long recommended keeping resale value in mind when making decisions about your home. Whether you’re picking out new colors for the interior, refreshing the landscaping in the front yard or planning a kitchen renovation, you should consider how the changes you make could hurt or increase the value of your home when you sell it, they say.

But people are rethinking whether all-white interiors, open floor plans and sprawling lawns – decorating choices that have traditionally been associated with high resale value and therefore a positive return on investment – are really right for everyone. Trends like dopamine decor, maximalism, color drenching and more celebrate color and personalized design choices, and while we’re all for decorating to our tastes, we have to ask ourselves: Will we regret going big and bold in our spaces when we sell? Should resale value still be an important factor in design decisions?

For this month Ask an agent, We asked Jessica Poulos of the Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate Northwest Home Team to share her thoughts on whether homeowners should still keep resale value in mind when decorating.

Ask a Realtor: Should I decorate my home for myself or for the next buyer?

It’s so hard. How long do you plan on staying there? Let’s take the military family. They’ll be here two to five years, so they’ll probably have to stay pretty neutral. But if this is your home and you’ve always wanted a purple living room, do what makes you happy! Because it’s your home!

As an agent, though, it’s difficult. When you go in and someone is ready to sell and has made bold decisions about the house, the list of defects is longer, right? And it’s difficult for the homeowner because the agent says, “OK, we need to replace these tiles. We need to replace these pendant lights.”

It’s just a matter of weighing up the costs involved.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.