Vacant Homes For Sale: A National Problem
The pile of aging newspapers and the empty windows are telltale signs.
This home is vacant and for sale.
There are lots of other clues: the leaves are piling up on the walkway, the windows are grimy, the for sale sign is hanging at an angle, and there are spider webs across the front door.
This home is not alone. Record numbers of high end homes are vacant, and these homes are the most difficult to sell. With little to look at other than floors, walls and ceilings, buyers take advantage of a seller who they think is desperate to sell and submit low-ball offers.
The likely result? A final sales price that can fall as much as 20-30% below the original list price coupled with a selling time that can be double or triple that of an occupied or fully staged home.*
Showhomes surveyed over 500 Realtors at the National Association of Realtors Annual Expo in November, 2009 and we got this response from the majority:
- Vacant homes sell for at least 15% less.
- A fully staged home sells in Half the time it takes to sell a vacant home.
1 out of 9 Houses in the US are Vacant
USA Today recently reported that vacant homes are at an all time high. From Maine to Hawaii, millions of new McMansions, post-World War II bungalows, modern downtown lofts, ex-urban town homes, and inner-city row houses sit empty. This unprecedented glut of vacant homes — one in nine homes across the USA, according to this article — will change the real estate landscape for years. The opportunity for growth in Showhomes is substantial.
Vandalized Vacant Home in Phoenix
Bare floors and empty rooms are not the only thing threatening the selling time for a vacant house. They quickly become the targets of vandals, thieves, and scam artists. Stolen air conditioning units, illegal parties, overnight “guests” and pointless vandalism make it nearly impossible to insure such a property, which you can see for yourself in the vacant home insurance video below.
This is what we know: A recent article in the Christian Science Monitor stated that a single vacant home causes the value of all neighboring residences to drop by an estimated $5,000, and the drop can be more severe in more affluent neighborhoods where the number of vacant homes continues to rise.
In addition, vacant homes are very difficult and very expensive to insure. Homeowners stand to lose everything by leaving a home vacant:
How do we fit into all of this?
Showhomes has an innovative solution to these messy problems: place a live in Home Manager in the home who keeps it in show condition seven days a week so it shows perfect, sells quickly and sells for more money. Our specialized contracts and insurance program steeply reduces the homeowner’s risk, our live-in Home Manager helps keeps the home from being vandalized and stops little problems from becoming major issues and most importantly, our unique expertise of setting a home up so it sells produces amazing results.
* In a 2008 case study, homes staged by Showhomes sold for 93% of original list price. At the end of the study a comparable group of vacant homes not using Showhomes services were still on the market, with prices already reduced to an average of 86% of original list price.