Selling a vacant house can be a challenge. While you want to eliminate your personal influences when selling a home, a house that is completely empty can come across as cold and uninviting. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when selling a vacant house.
1) Maintain your staging.
You still want to stage your vacant home after you move out of it. In fact, your staging becomes even more important, because the things you place around the home need to make it feel lived-in, comfortable, and inviting. Keep your staging light, but definitely keep it in mind. Keep a couple towels, toilet paper, soap, and a bath mat in the bathroom. You may even want to stage a couple bottles of shampoo, and definitely keep the shower curtain in the picture.Â
You’ll want to keep some furniture in the home as well. For the bedroom, you can easily stage one of the air mattress kits to look like a real bed if you’ve had to move yours out. Otherwise, consider renting staging furniture to meet the purpose. One more important thing to remember is to keep your window treatments up.
Apart from furniture, you’ll want to keep a few items in the home to make it feel, well, homey. Keep a blanket and maybe a book on a chair or couch in the living room, keep a few movies in the entertainment room, and set out a bowl of fake fruit or a wine bottle with glasses set out in the kitchen. You may even want to put a plant out on the patio, and keep some toys in a room for the kids to play with while the parents browse.Â
Adding a few touches like this around the home can help bring in a little of the warmth necessary to make the home sellable.
2) Don’t neglect the home!
Have someone come in regularly to clean the home and keep the lawns mowed and the gardens maintained. An overgrown home that is collecting dust is not going to sell quickly, and it definitely won’t add to your resale value. Also make sure the home is being maintained. If it is vacant in the wintertime, make sure someone is keeping an eye on the pipes so they don’t freeze. Damages that are incurred because the home has been left vacant can really detract from the resale value.
3) Secure the home.
It is a good idea to set lights on timers and have someone check on the home regularly to protect against vandals and squatters. You may also want to install an alarm system to keep the house safe while no one is there.
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Posted by Gurpreet Ghatehora on
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