If you are a seller and you are tempted to place your home on the market empty, please think again. We understand this may happen for various reasons. The property may have been a rental and the tenants have moved out. Maybe the owner has bought elsewhere and already moved, or even the owner is elderly and moved to a care facility.
So why is this?
Keep in mind that buyers will tend to be either dollar-driven or emotive driven. As a Seller, you want to attract those emotive buyers as they pay more, as obviously dollar-driven buyer are only looking for a cheap buy.
Empty properties have no ‘soul’, meaning they are lifeless and void of emotion. Take out all the furniture in a bedroom, and you just have a box. Not very exciting and certainly not emotive.
Sellers justification for empty homes
We sometimes hear seller justify an empty property as saying people will look past it. Some may, but the buyers who pay the most, emotively driven buyers, will not look past the empty, lifeless property, they will simply skip it altogether. So again, who do you have left, the dollar-driven buyers.
Sound in empty homes
Empty properties echo. Some buyers become concerned about noise in the home. Also, empty places generally don’t bring positive feelings. Empty places also usually convey feelings of loneliness – again, not a great emotion to be promoting.
Empty properties also show every flaw. We don’t condone specifically hiding issues, but a furnished home, by their nature, will redirect the eye. We often say a styled home compared to an empty property is like a man in a well-fitted suit compared to a man in a pair of speedos under bright lights – every flaw is highlighted for all to see. With empty properties, buyers tend to focus on the negatives.
Spatially
Spatially some people struggle with empty properties. Will a queen bed fit in the bedroom? If it already has a queen bed and side tables and an occasional chair, then it is easy to see what fits and how well. This is the same with most living areas too.
Furnished homes lead the buyer along a journey you wish to take them. Let them fall in love with the ambience and lifestyle of the home. Create these emotions, and you attract those buyers prepared to pay the most. Yes, the furniture doesn’t stay with the home, they do realise that. But in their mind, they will remember your beautiful home with those gorgeous living areas, incredible bedrooms, oh and what about that amazing outdoor area. Wow, I can see myself having BBQs there on lazy summer weekends. That’s the impression you want to create.
Finally, what is the difference between styled and dressed? A styled home is where the home is empty, and a Stylist is employed to supply and set up the furniture, artwork, auxiliary pieces etc. to create a full package. Dressing is simply using existing furniture and so forth to create the best possible look with what’s on hand.
Written by Shawn Kristofer