This page offers a few vacant property selling tips to our clients on West Wight. The selling tips for your vacant property will apply anywhere. Selling any property can be stressful, but selling a vacant property comes with additional concerns. It is essential to keep the property secure to minimise the risk of break-in and trespass.

Maintain the property to a good standard, keep it clean and looking the best it can to give yourself the best chance of selling. Here are a few ideas to help achieve a successful sale without compromising security :-

“Dress” the house – vacant property selling tips

Vacant properties usually take longer to sell than occupied ones, and often sell for less. The ideal way to both sell and protect a vacant property is by dressing the house so that it looks occupied. Furnishings help prospective purchasers to ‘visualise’ the house as a home. Your property is more secure by appearing lived in rather than empty. Ideas on dressing the house are:-

• Keep some furniture in the house until it is sold. This gives potential purchasers an idea of how the layout of the house works. Typical examples are: dining table and chairs, sofa, double bed and occasional pieces. The furniture also makes the property seem occupied. However make sure furniture is not valuable. 
• Use second-hand furniture or sale items to achieve the lived-in look if you have had to move your furniture out to your next property. Beware though poor quality furniture can put viewers off.
• Use accessories and soft furnishings to keep the illusion of the house being occupied. Artificial plants create atmosphere, add lamps, rugs and wall art to stage a style. 
• Using appropriately sized furniture to create perspective on room size. For example, a sofa fitting comfortably in the room will help buyers judge the space available.
• Keeping up regular routines such as removing post from the hallway. Use timer switches and smart plugs to bring on interior and exterior lighting. 
• Consider carefully whether utilities should be turned off. It is a wise precaution to keep the heating ON at 16 degrees during the winter. This will keep damp at bay, prevent pipes from freezing and make the house welcoming for winter viewings.

Timing – vacant property selling tips

Dress and prepare the house for selling before the estate agent comes to photograph the property. The agents’ photos may be on the selling portals such as Rightmove, Zoopla and ontheMarket for an extended period. The vast majority of buyers decide whether to view a house based on this very first impression. So it is vitally important to get the timing right! Dress first, engage the agent second. 

Unfortunately it’s not just prospective purchasers who spend time trawling the listings. Criminals collect information from property listings. Listings have location maps and ‘street view’ options, it is possible to identify a property address from an online listing. The ideal appearance is lived in, smart, clean and tidy but not with valuable contents. 

Viewings – vacant property selling tips

Make sure the house is as attractive as possible before every viewing, it could be the next viewer who buys the house.

Keep the garden & outside areas tidy. Buyers are very interested in outside spaces – even if you only have a bike shed. First impressions and kerb appeal are crucial. Make sure the lawn is mown, paths & patio swept, bushes and hedges trimmed. Collect and dispose of leaves. Remove litter. Clean the windows. Sort out the old shed!

If you are using an agent and you are not able to prepare the house in advance ask them to air the house and move the post before the viewers arrive.

The more viewings a property has, the quicker it is likely to sell but ensure the property is secure between viewings – a Sherlock and Watson inspection visit during the marketing period could be the best arrangement you make.

Who needs to know

If your property is empty, it is worth considering who needs to know this:

Inform the local authority via the local council offices. Council Tax exemption is usually applicable for a vacant property in the case of the owner going into care or if the owner has died. Property owners should know that doubled Council Tax is applied where the house is vacant for more than 2 years, tripled after 5 years and quadrupled after 10 years.

Inform the local police or community support officers that the property is empty and advise your insurance company.

Letting neighbours and representatives of the local Neighbourhood Watch know that the property is empty is a good way to enlist informal local help. 

Inform the alarm company. Connect your estate agents with your Alarm Company, in the event of issues arising.

Maintenance

In consideration of the vacant property selling tips above, and assuming the house is in reasonable decorative order, it is definitely a good idea to organise a basic maintenance program. Ideally this would be something you could do yourself. Alternatively a regular program would involve a gardener, window cleaner plus our internal inspection and ad hoc light cleaning to keep the dust at bay.

Try to be objective about the condition of the house, look at it from the eyes of a prospective buyer. Maybe what it really needs is a proper spruce up with decoration through out. We recommend the use of neutral colours but choosing tones which add a little warmth will make the home feel welcoming. Once decorated potential buyers will focus on the layout and other features rather than zone in on superficial decor issues.

Finally, whilst all of the above is important to help you find a buyer and achieve a sale, it’s just as important to keep regular checks on the property once a sale is going through. Identify problems such as leaks or flooding quickly then they will be quicker and cheaper to fix.

For advice on how to prepare your West Wight house for selling, for organising cleaning, gardening and decoration Contact us here