Kris Sherry's Blog

What to expect when looking at vacant homes

Posted on: May 16th, 2020 by Kris Sherry

With the new reality, many sellers are preferring to move into a new home before even listing the old one. This means that their old home may be vacant, without furniture.

This poses some challenges. In a perfect world, sellers will have taken photos of their home before moving out, but sometimes this isn’t possible. When viewing a furnished home, buyers have an idea of scale and perspective when picturing their own furniture in a room. An empty room can be really misleading sometimes making a room look smaller than it really is. No furniture also means there is no way to cover up those scratches, dents, and other accidents that have accumulated over the years of homeownership!

Using nifty virtual staging software, some agents are choosing to virtually stage rooms. For example, when looking at listings on mls, furniture and décor can be digitally added and can even be included in 3D virtual tours. But when entering the home in real life, it’s empty so this is where you would need to use your imagination. Your agent should be able to give you a head’s up prior to entering the home.

Some buyers automatically assume that because the home is vacant, the seller is desperate to sell. But that is usually not the case. But it does mean that as a buyer, you can usually close on the property sooner. And in fact, a more aggressive closing date may be attractive to the seller.

Interestingly, for rental properties, vacant properties are preferred. Again, since the tenant has left, the prospective tenant gets a good look at the condition of the property as well as knowing they can move in as soon as the paperwork is completed. And there isn’t a risk that the current tenant may not be able to vacate.

So typically, circumstances are dictating when a home is vacant. But in the COVID 19 era, it can be a benefit.

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