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Real Estate Tips

Is It Easier to Sell an Empty House?

Posted on Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Does an empty room leave scope for the imagination, or does it make people draw a blank?

Would you be able to sell your home more quickly if you removed everything from it, leaving a blank slate for new buyers? When you are trying to sell a house, you sometimes have a choice: to live in it as you try to sell or to buy or rent a new home as you try to sell your old one. What choice is the best one?

Can You Afford to Move Out?

Sometimes, it is best to keep living in a home while you sell it. This could be for purely financial reasons. If you are in a slower real estate market, it can take a long time to sell your home. You may not be able to find a new home and purchase it while keeping both mortgages afloat. Often, keeping furniture in your home is the most sensible financial choice.

Empty Homes Are More Convenient

An empty home can be more convenient for realtors to access. After all, if no one is living in the home, realtors do not have to bother with calling to make an appointment to show the home. If a home is empty and a potential buyer is in a hurry to see it, the realtor can address that urgency right away with a spur-of-the-moment showing, which may result in a quick sale.

Furniture Can Help People See a Space

Furniture can be helpful when people need to understand how your home looks when it is inhabited. If you are selling your home, you might have better luck if you maintain your existing furniture in the space or choose to stage it with furniture in it. For example, if you have a house that has a nontraditional space or is very small, you could use furniture to highlight the versatility and livability of that space.

Your Furniture Reflects Your Taste

On the other hand, the furniture you have in your home reflects your taste. This taste may not be shared by others. For instance, if you like to decorate with a country garden theme in your living room, those who like clear, clean lines could be turned off simply because your furniture is too floral. Like it or not, your furniture helps define the home, and if people do not like your furniture, they could have a hard time seeing past that to the underlying structure of the home.

Furniture and other items in your home are also quite personal. You have family photos, children’s drawings, and other mementos from your life in your home. That can make it harder for new people to visualize themselves in your space.

Living Is a Messy Business

Staging a home for sale can be very time-consuming. Your furniture and your home get messy when there are people living in it. As you hold open houses and invite others into your home, you need to continue to keep it clean and maintain a neutral appearance. That includes fluffing the couch cushions and cleaning off the crumbs. When you move out and the home is empty, it will not gather clutter, even if it gathers dust.

Furniture Can Get In the Way of New Opportunities

For some people, it can be difficult to visualize a room’s possibilities if there is already furniture in the room. For example, if you are using a room as a child’s bedroom and it could be used as an office, studio, or workout room, it can be difficult for visitors to visualize the room if you have furniture in it already. If you want to open up new ways of seeing the room and you find that visitors to your home are unable to easily visualize your space with furniture in it, it could be better to be without furniture or to stage the space in a different way, aiming it toward a specific demographic or audience.

Adding elements to a room through staging can help people imagine living in the space.

A Well-Staged Home Can Add Value

One intermediate solution is to move out but to add furniture to stage your home, making it look its best. A staged home is designed to please the masses. While people know that the furniture is not part of the house deal, higher-end furniture that works smoothly together can give your home an upscale, yet neutral feel. An open room feels like a blank slate, and while some people enjoy that feeling, others feel overwhelmed by the amount of work that they will need to do to make that space feel like home. Staging helps them visualize the room with quality furniture.

At Open for Homes, we are here to help you make decisions about your home purchase, sale, or rental. Are you ready for a new home? Visit the blog at Open For Homes today.