Buying A Home
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Selling an empty house tips?
Hi, I'm new to this board (lurker mostly).
DH and I are closing on a new house tomorrow and we're putting our current house on the market once we move out (since everything is currently boxed up).
I keep reading that empty houses just don't sell, and it's really not feasible for us to leave our furniture behind since we won't be living there.
Would it be beneficial to take pictures of the house furnished (moving boxes around room to room)? Or is there a good way to stage an empty house (not looking to buy new furniture)?
Also, has anyone sold an empty house in this market? I'd really appreciate any tips on this.
Re: Selling an empty house tips?
We bought an empty house. To us, it didn't make much of a difference and it was actually easier for us to visualize our furniture on a blank canvas!
The biggest deal to us on an empty house is that if it's empty it's vacant and if it's vacant for a LONG time, then it's not being maintained which could mean more headaches/repairs for us upon moving in.
I'm not sure how helpful that is to you, but that is my experience/viewpoint on it.
This. We found that empty houses were often easier to view/imagine ourselves in than lived-in homes...
As long as you keep the place clean (dusted, wipe down the windows with windex, etc.) I don't think it should be a problem...
We're getting ready to close on a house that was empty when we viewed it. And when we were looking about 90% were empty.
Personally, I got turned off a house quicker when all the sellers things were still there...looking at empty ones allowed us to better evaluate space and picture ourselves there.
October 13, 2012
The Nifty Foodie
Life/Craft Blog
We prefered the empty houses for a few reasons:
1. I could envision my own stuff in them without having to look past the owner's.
2. Tacky decor (not saying you have it) was really distracting--especially if your husband is 12yo like mine who had a fun time creating "lives" for the owners. sigh...
3. I could see EVERYTHING--no hiding holes in the walls, stains on the floor, etc.
Good luck!
My Valentine Bookends (2~13~13, 2~15~09)
I liked seeing empty houses- in person! I almost didn't go to see wither though because the photographs for the listings for terrible. Without furniture, it was hard to visualize what I was looking at exactly.
But in person? Loved the empty houses. It was just easier to imagine our stuff in the space. I will say that if a house is empty, it needs to be spotless. The first thing we noticed about the one we ended up buying was that it was dirty and lacked maintenance. The other empty house was spotless and very well kjept.
This made me laugh so hard! H did that when we were house hunting, too!
The Nifty Foodie
Life/Craft Blog
Like others, I also don't mind looking at empty houses. But like someone else said, they must be spotless. I shouldn't see an outline on the carpet of where your furniture used to be, holes in the walls from pictures, etc.
That being said, we sold an empty house. We left a few artifical pants there, some pictures on the wall, etc so it didn't look completely empty.
There are certain guidelines for helping your home sell: declutter, have a nice furniture arrangement, neutralize paint, and so forth.
Although having a furnished house with a good layout is a 'guideline' for helping you sell it doesn't mean that is an absolute determining factor in actually selling your home.
MORE relies on your market - are houses similar to yours moving well or not, is a bigger question.
Our home was sold empty and was on the market for about 90 days, 60 of those empty. THAT was a good selling time for the market we were in regardless if the home was furnished or not.
An unfurnished home should:
1) be spotless IMO - making it look as clean and new as possible
2) have a neutral odor or a pleasant odor
3) have a cleaning service or the REA come in a dust and spot clean (toilets will develop a water stain and people will look).
4) make sure the yard/landscaping is mantained
5) make sure that snow removal occurs PROMPTLY
Your listing should probably have images with the furniture in it - but make sure they are actually GOOD images. You'd be better off having furniture-less pictures if the images with furniture suck.
Good luck!
Our house was empty when it sold but we took pictures of it with the furniture for the listing. That may be an idea for you.
ETA: Sorry, I missed the prior post with the same recommendation.
Rooms also tend to look a lot bigger when they're empty so that may help too! We are moving next weekend and our house is still for sale. We will soon be in the same boat and I'm not too worried about it.