Have you ever stepped into an empty house for sale and wondered where will all your furniture fit or does this room look small? You wouldn’t be alone.
There are many reasons why someone would be selling an empty house- a newly built display home, a recently moved out tenant or the owners found a new home and have moved on already. Whatever the reason, unfortunately, empty homes don’t sell as fast as furnished ones…. why?
1) An empty property has no emotional connection with the buyers
How can a buyer fall in love or imagine what their life would be like in an empty house? Being able to show the warmth of a home is important when presenting your property for sale. Buyers will want to engage with their ‘next’ home and if a property is marketed while vacant, it can be difficult for them to really envisage their life at the property.
2) There is no point of scale reference in an empty home.
Empty rooms actually look smaller than furnished ones. A furnished home gives buyers a measurement of scale to compare their items to, “my dining table is bigger than this one but I can see it will fit”. It also gives the potential buyer an idea of layout for the home.
3) Buyers tend to focus on the negatives in an empty home, as there isn’t much else to look at.
They will see faults in light switches, cornice work, paintwork, door handles and broken tiles. These small things leave big negative impressions on buyers and they calculate the cost to fix these things, and usually double or triple the cost.
4) Consider property styling an investment rather than a cost.
Statistics show that property styling has a 4 fold positive effect by drawing more traffic to the property. Property Styling is all about making your property appealing to as many people resulting in a faster sale at a higher price.
5) People take their first look online
Most people start their property search by hitting the internet first. In a matter of minutes they have found listings from a series of photos and attractive descriptions. If your home is empty, how can it entice someone to click on your listing?