CHAPTER 1 Introduction Vacant homes pose real estate challenges and offer opportunity at the same time. Paradoxically, empty real estate can be easier to sell (e.g., it can be owner-unoccupied and beautifully staged for marketing) and at the same time it is harder to sell (it may be a piece of property left to you in a favorite aunt’s estate that has been neglected for years. That is what we are going to discuss in this book — the challenges and the techniques to successfully sell an empty house. A home can become vacant due to marriage, divorce, job relocation, death, or myriad other life events. The house could be in superb, average, or shabby condition. It may be updated or old-fashioned. It may be starkly empty and beautifully painted in neutral colors throughout, or it may be crammed with old furniture and the previous owner’s (perhaps your) possessions and have zebra-striped wallpaper in the kitchen and bathrooms.
Either way, it needs to be sold. This book considers how.
There are two types of vacant home sales. One is where the homeowners/sellers have decided to vacate the home they currently live in and reside elsewhere while the house is sold, such as an apartment, rental home, or residence hotel. They do this to make a home showing a more attractive
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