Planning to sell a vacant house? Selling an empty house to the right buyer requires some patience and ingenuity. Most homeowners often experience stress, anxiety or feel a bit uncomfortable when selling an empty house. An important factor that can affect the buying and selling of your property is time. If the timing is right, all sales and purchases would align perfectly, helping you have a buyer ready to accommodate your old home just in time when you need to move into your new abode.
However, due to certain reasons – your job or unpredictable circumstances or an irresistible opportunity, things may not happen smoothly or as expected. This may leave you in a situation where you may have to shift into a new home before selling your current home.
So, what can you do when you are left with selling an empty house?
Traditionally, while selling a house without furnishings is considered to be difficult, there can be innumerable benefits of selling an empty house. A vacant house is a blank canvas that allows the buyers to experiment with their creativity when setting up their home.
To make you empty home look more appealing and homely to prospective buyers, follow some of these simple tips listed below in this guide.
Landscaping:
Keeping the outdoors of your home neat and tidy is important to attract prospective buyers especially if you are planning to sell an empty home. To keep the outdoors looking great in any season, ensure that you trim hedges and cut grass in summer, rake up fallen leaves during the fall and remove snow in the winters. However, if you have vacated your home, hire a professional landscapist to help you maintain your yard.
Overall maintenance:
Keeping your empty house well — maintained is important to help increase chances of a quick sale. If your home is left vacant for quite some time, ensure that you keep the gutters clean and pay attention to its plumbing and electrical works. Additionally, maintaining a good paint job will not only help your home look more modern and appealing, but will also show the buyers that you have taken good care of the property.
Furniture:
When selling a vacant house, consider having some furnishings in and around the home. Even if you are not living in your old home, try adding some furniture in the key rooms of your home. While adding a simple table with a few chairs can help fill the dining room, adding a bed with a chest of drawers can help spruce the décor required in this room. Keeping some furniture in an empty space can help a buyer imagine his own furniture in the given space. However, if do not have any spare furniture items to be displayed in your old home, consider renting or borrowing a few items for the short term.
Highlight your Assets:
Highlighting certain features that look great in your home can be quite handy in helping you get a quick sale. For instance, if you have hardwood floors that have taken a beating, ensure that you get them polished and gleaming.
Use appropriate paint colors:
When putting up your empty home for sale, spruce up space with paint. Choose to paint neutral colors in the indoors as they will hide any imperfections and help brighten up the place. Avoid using bright or glaring colors and opt for soft warm tones such as off- whites, beige’s, and grays. Apart from painting the walls, ensure that you also paint any woodwork, cabinets or trim that are in need of a makeover.
Update fixtures:
Replace any outdated or broken fixtures such as faucets switch plates, drawer pulls, door knobs and lights when trying to sell your empty home. This will not only help your home look better at an affordable price, but will also keep your home safe and secured. Updating fixtures of a vacant home is important and is often overlooked by most sellers.
Keep it Clean:
If your home is empty, make sure that you keep it clean and tidy at all times. Clean the windows from the inside out and ensure that your bathrooms and kitchen sparkle.
Create a homely atmosphere:
Even if you are no longer living in your old home, keeping a few things in your home can help make the place look more ‘homely’. Keeping a few beautiful area rugs, a dish or pretty soaps, an attractive candle, nice hand towels in the bathroom or low maintenance house plants on counter tops can make your home more inviting to the prospective buyer and optimize your chances of selling your vacant home.
Air it out:
Homes that are vacant for extended periods of time can acquire a mustiness that should be eliminated periodically. Ensure that you open windows every few days to allow air flow and prevent staleness or stuffiness inside your home.
Selling an empty house can be an uphill task. Adding simple, elegant solutions to your empty home will not only get your vacant home ready to attract a lucrative buyer, but will also increase your chances of selling as quickly as possible. If you are not close to the property a good idea is to hire a qualified Real Estate Agent. Any good Real Estate agent should be capable and have the resources to coordinate and arrange to have all these things done in addition to have someone to monitor the house until he finds a buyer. Alternatively, if you can’t wait or just don’t want to deal with the uncertainties and prefer to sell your house quickly without the need of making any cosmetic repairs or having to arrange for any staging or maintenance you may consider selling your house to Real Estate Investors. Any reputable Real Estate Investor should be capable to make you a cash offer and close in your time line. If you are considering on selling your property fast to an investors, give us a call. We will be delighted to meet with you and see if we can be of service.
