There are some things that you should keep in mind when you’re selling a vacant home or selling vacant rental property. For the most part, selling a vacant home is just the same as selling an occupied home. One of the main differences is that with an occupied home, the would-be buyer would still see the home with all its furniture and furnishings. This, sometimes, makes it easier for those interested to visualize how it would be like to live in the home if they do decide to buy it.
With vacant homes, though, there are some challenges as they, sometimes, give off the aura of being barren or abandoned. To avoid turning off a potentially great buyer, you might want to consider some of the dos and don’ts discussed in this article. It’s quite important to keep these things in mind, especially if you’re working to get a handsome price for the sale of your home. Here are some of the dos and don’ts of selling a vacant home.
Things You Should Do When Selling A Vacant Home
Homeowners who decide to sell their home all try to come up with ways to make the most of the features of the home they’re selling. They try to maximize the attractiveness and appeal of their property. There are many different ways to do this, and sellers would most likely devise their own creative ways to spruce up their homes. Here are some of the things that you ought to consider doing when you’re selling a vacant home.
- Do Work On The Curb Appeal
One thing that you have to do if you’re planning to sell a vacant home is to work on your home’s curb appeal. Your facade is the first thing that buyers would see when they drive into your curb or front. In many instances, the look and appeal of the curb and facade creates lasting impressions on buyers that could immensely affect their decision whether or not to purchase the home.
- Do Light Up the Exterior
You should also consider working on the exterior lighting. As you’re selling a vacant home, you should try to balance out the emptiness of the interiors by infusing warmth to its exteriors and facade. You can do this by giving the property a homey and welcoming feel from the moment that the buyer steps on your lawn or doorstep.
You might want to consider using warm lights which would give the facade a homey and serene look and feel that would usher the buyer in. If it exudes warmth and security, it might just help the buyers imagine it as their next home. A warm and appealing exterior also tones down some of the emptiness and barrenness of the vacant interiors.
- Do Clean Pathways, Walkways, and Sidewalks
Aside from the facade and the curb, you should also clean up all the pathways, walkways, and sidewalks in and around your property. This may not seem as important to others as the interior structure and look of the home, but there are some buyers who would notice how the pathways and walkways in and around your home look like.
If there are many leaves, barks, shrubs, and dirt strewn all over your walkways and pathways, they might think you have little regard for such things as the ground you walk on everyday. You don’t have to do any repair work or renovation on them. You just need to do a little clean up, and maybe some trimming of grass and shrubs. This won’t take up a lot of your time, and you don’t even have to hire a professional cleaning service. You just have to make them look spic and span, and that would be enough to create a positive impression on some buyers.
- Do Set Up A Security System
You should also consider setting up a security or camera monitoring system around your home. There are some buyers who would be looking for this when they walk through your property during the showings. They’d know that you keep the place safe with much regard for buyers like them. A vacant home can easily be broken into by animals and even intruders.
To assuage your buyer’s fears, you should set up a security or camera monitoring system which they can view from anywhere. This also assures them of a good security system when they do decide to buy the house.
Of course, securing manually should be done. The simple way of locking doors and windows tight continues to be a deterrent for intruders. Intruders won’t normally let themselves be seen trying to break into a well-secured door or window.
- Do Inform Authorities And The Neighborhood
Apart from securing your home with devices, local authorities should also know that your house is now vacant. This allows local police to make rounds to the area more frequently or simply keep an extra eye on your property.
You could also inform a few close neighbors or the neighborhood association, if any, about your house so that they can help alert authorities if anything is amiss in the property.
Things You Shouldn’t Do When Selling a Vacant Home
There are also a lot of things that you should avoid or refrain from doing when you’re selling a vacant home. Although selling an occupied home is practically almost the same as selling a vacant home, there are some significant differences which can affect your efforts to sell your vacant home for a good price. Here are some of the things that you should avoid doing when you’re trying to sell your vacant home.
- Don’t Take Too Long
You’re working against time when selling vacant house. Without anyone to regularly look after the house, wear and tear can set in quickly, and your costs increase with each day of spending on utilities and marketing.
Your best bet to get your house sold as soon as possible would be to sell to cash buyers. Dealing with cash buyers takes less time than listing services, for instance. You can be done with the selling process in a week or two as opposed to about a couple of months when you go a different route.
- Don’t Leave Stray Items Be
One of the first things that you should remember not to do when you’re selling a vacant home is that you shouldn’t leave stray items strewn all over your yard and inside your home. It’s messy and even unsafe as buyers viewing the house could hurt themselves with a wayward toy on the floor or a tool sticking out where it shouldn’t.
Moreover, these items would often distract a prospective buyer from appreciating the nice features of your home. They might only think about how messy the place is and how they don’t want to live in it.
- Don’t Let Mail and Newspapers Pile Up
When the occupants or residents of a home leave, they also often tend to leave piles of mail and newspapers in the mailbox or the living room. Most people think these are harmless. But the thing with piles of newspapers and letters is that they tend to highlight the fact that a home is already vacant. In fact, they can make a home look abandoned, which you don’t want to project to your buyers.
Would-be buyers would like to have some reassurance that there has been no severe or significant damage to the home after you’ve left. A pile of mail or newspapers is a telltale sign that you haven’t visited the place in a while. Hence, you can’t argue that you’ve been taking care of the house.
- Don’t Turn Off Utilities During The Showing
It’s quite common for homeowners to shut off all the utilities in their home when they leave. This includes everything that they were using when they were still living in the home such as lights, water, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems. Some do this to prevent untoward incidents from happening and some to minimize possible pilfering of their utilities. Some do it believing it would help them save some money through reduced energy bills.
But you should switch on all of your utilities when the property is shown to a prospective buyer. You’d have to be able to show to your potential buyer that everything works well in your home, including the entire plumbing system. You should show your would-be buyer that your HVAC system is working fine and there’s no need to worry about it. It would also help your buyers to imagine how it would be like living in the home once they settle in.
Conclusion
There are some people who think there’s not much difference between selling a vacant home and selling a home which is still occupied by the family or homeowners. But there are quite a number of significant differences between selling a vacant home and an occupied home. It’s a lot easier to stage an occupied home because everything is still there. Sometimes, a vacant home also feels barren and abandoned, so you might have to work a little bit more to sell it at a good price. Work on your curb appeal, light up the exterior, and keep your security system working. Don’t leave anything strewn around, and keep the electricity and water on for the convenience of your buyers.