chapters on staging).
The advantages of vacating the house before starting the home marketing and sales process include presenting a better staging opportunity, more frequent showings, easier upkeep to curb appeal and a pristine interior, and less burden on the seller’s time and effort. The second type of vacant home sale situation is where the home is truly unoccupied, no one lives there, and perhaps no one has lived there for some time. Maybe the house is inherited, was assumed for a debt, or was an investment that didn’t pan out. Vacant home sales can be due to a bank foreclosure or short sale in which the lender accepts less than the mortgage balance. It’s these bank-owned properties, sometimes called Real Estate- Owned, or REOs, that tend to be “problem homes” in maintenance and sales.
NOT LIVING IN YOUR HOME MAKES IT EA ME MAKES IT EASIER TO SELL
Some real estate professionals profess that it’s 10 times easier to sell a house that the seller is not currently living in than an owner-occupied home. There are several advantages to this approach. Buyer agents’ showings could be increased, as it’s usually more efficient for real estate agents’ schedules to show unoccupied homes. If they have 20 homes to show and 5 are occupied, they may show the vacant homes first because it’s just easier. They can arrange with the seller or seller’s agent to go to the home and access it via the lockbox. Also, a homeowner isn’t interrupted at inopportune times to show the home. A seller doesn’t have to go to a neighbor’s, to the
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