7 Tips To Successfully Sell a Vacant Home
Whether you've moved out of your home already or are an investor looking to flip a property you've recently renovated, selling a vacant home comes with additional challenges. Keep the following tips in mind to ensure a successful home sale.
1. Keep Up With Curb Appeal
Curb appeal is important, regardless of whether your home is vacant or not. But it plays an even bigger role when your home is empty.
You want to make sure that buyers get a positive first impression, and that the outside of your home is the first thing they see. So, make sure the grass is cut, the hedges are trimmed, the front door is in good condition, and the debris is swept away.
2. Invest in Home Staging
Even if you've already moved out and taken all your furniture with you, that doesn't mean you have to leave your home vacant. If the budget permits, consider investing in professional home staging.
In fact, this is a step all sellers should take, no matter if the home has been vacated by the owners or not. It's been proven that professional staging can speed up the selling process and help sellers get top dollar for their homes. A vacant home is the perfect opportunity to get a professional home stager in there to work their magic and create an interior that buyers will love.
3. Consider Virtual Home Staging
If it's not possible to stage your home for whatever reason, consider virtual home staging services. Keep in mind that this will serve well for online market photos, which will help buyers get an idea of what the home could look like when it's all furnished and decorated. But it won't change anything in person.
That's because virtual home staging involves the creation of digital images of a home with virtual furnishing and decorating. This gives your real estate agent a chance to market your home without having to physically outfit the interior with furniture and decorative pieces.
You'll need to make sure that you add a disclosure to your listing that specifies that the home has been virtually staged since you don't want the buyers to show up and be unpleasantly surprised by an empty home.
4. Fix Imperfections
When a home is furnished, it can easily camouflage any flaws that may exist, such as scratches on the hardwood flooring, stains on the carpet, or dents in the walls. If you're going to market your home while it's vacant, you may want to take steps to fix these imperfections. Otherwise, a vacant home will magnify them and potentially turn buyers off.
5. Make Good Use of Lighting
If you don't have furniture to appeal to buyers, at least make sure that your home has good lighting. Consider leaving a few lamps behind to help achieve a good ambience in the house. This will come in even more handy at night when light is needed both for functional and decorative purposes.
With the right use of lighting, you can make your home feel welcoming and warm to prospective buyers.
6. Keep Your Insurance Policy Active
As long as you own the home, your property insurance should continue to remain active. Anything can happen to your home, especially if you're not there every day to keep tabs on it.
You may no longer have any contents in the home, but the property itself must still be protected. Plus, you will still need some type of liability insurance to protect yourself from litigation in case someone hurts themselves while on your property.
7. Set Up a Smart Thermostat
Odds are you already have some sort of smart technology in your home, including the thermostat. This is important, as the home will still need to have the interior temperature maintained while you're not there.
You don't want buyers to enter a home that's sweltering in the summer or frigid in the winter. To make sure that doesn't happen, you'll need to manage the temperature remotely.
If you're ready to sell your home, we can help. Reach out to the team at The Lotus Group today!