Selling an empty property sounds as though it should be straightforward.
There is nobody to work around for viewings. There is no chain above you. Buyers can normally move quickly.
But strangely, empty properties can sometimes be harder to sell well.
Without furniture, buyers can struggle to judge the size of a room or imagine where their own things would go. An empty house can feel colder in photographs and on viewings. Small maintenance issues suddenly become much more noticeable. And, if the owner lives elsewhere, simply keeping an eye on the property can become another job altogether.
At Campbells, we have dealt with enough empty properties over the years to know that simply putting one on Rightmove and hoping somebody sees the potential is not always the best approach.
So we now have a much more joined-up way of dealing with them.
Our aim is simple:
To achieve the maximum price possible, in the quickest amount of time, with the least amount of inconvenience.
And importantly, that doesn’t mean spending a fortune or doing everything we suggest.
It means working out what your particular empty property actually needs.
First, does anything need fixing?
Before worrying about photographs and marketing, it is worth looking at the property through a buyer’s eyes.
Has the garden become a little overgrown?
Are there marks where furniture used to sit?
Does something need repairing?
Has the property been rented for several years and simply needs freshening up?
Or perhaps the property still needs clearing?
This is where PropFix, our property maintenance service, can help.
Our ‘Fixing Team’ can arrange anything from clearing an empty property and carrying out cleaning or smaller repairs, right through to decorating, maintenance and more substantial improvement work.
We can also carry out a general property health check before the property goes to market. The idea isn’t to find jobs for the sake of it. It is to identify the things that are genuinely worth dealing with and leave alone the things that aren’t.
That can also help prevent a small maintenance issue becoming a much bigger discussion when a buyer’s surveyor eventually visits.
Sometimes our advice might be to do several jobs.
Sometimes it might be to do two.
And sometimes we may tell you not to spend another penny.
That is the point of looking at every empty property individually.
Then, does it actually look like a home?
This is probably one of the biggest differences between selling an occupied property and an empty one.
When buyers walk into a furnished sitting room, they instantly understand it.
Take everything out and suddenly the same room can look smaller, bigger, narrower or simply a little difficult to understand.
More importantly, it can lose its feeling.
Buyers aren’t just buying walls and measurements. They are trying to picture Sunday mornings in the kitchen, where the sofa might go, where everyone will sit at Christmas and whether a bedroom will comfortably work for them.
An empty room sometimes makes them work harder to imagine all of that.
That is why we work with The Artizen to offer professional property dressing and home staging.
And no, it doesn’t necessarily mean furnishing the entire property.
For some empty homes, dressing just one or two important WOW rooms can completely change the way buyers see the property. The styling can be tailored to the house, the budget and what we’re actually trying to achieve.
We have seen it work locally.
One empty former rental property had been handed back after years of letting with general wear and tear and a few maintenance issues. Rather than simply putting it straight onto the market, our PropFix team dealt with the maintenance, cleaned the property inside and out and tidied the outside. The Artizen then dressed it so buyers could see what the property could become.
Another empty rental property was furnished and styled in the middle of winter and subsequently sold quickly above the guide price.
That is exactly the sort of joined-up approach we mean.
Then we need to sell it properly
Once an empty property is looking its best, the next question is how we take it to market.
For some sellers, particularly where the property is vacant and there is no reason to drag the process out, our Express Sale can be a very good fit.
Express Sale is not an auction.
It is our method of preparing more of the legal work at the beginning, marketing the property intensively, qualifying interested buyers properly and aiming to exchange contracts within 28 days of accepting an offer.
Rather than waiting until a buyer has been found before everybody starts getting ready, we try to get as much prepared as possible beforehand.
That matters with an empty property because every extra month can potentially mean more insurance, council tax, utilities, garden maintenance, security worries and general inconvenience for the owner.
And speed doesn’t have to mean accepting a low price.
Our Express Sale at West Street in Welford generated 29 enquiries, 14 qualified viewings and 10 offers after eight days of marketing. It sold for more than 20% over the guide price and exchanged 28 days after the offer was accepted.
At Gloucester Close in Weedon, we generated 14 enquiries, seven qualified viewings and two offers, selling above the guide price and exchanging 27 days after the offer was agreed.
At Badby Road in Daventry, we generated 20 enquires, 15 qualified viewings and 5 offers (some of which came in at over 10% above the guide price).
The principle is not to sell cheaply.
It is to create competition, negotiate properly and then get the committed buyer legally committed as quickly as we sensibly can.
You don’t have to do all of it
This is probably the most important part.
There isn’t a compulsory Campbells empty-property package.
Your property might need clearing, decorating, repairing, dressing and then selling through Express Sale.
Or it might need absolutely none of that.
Perhaps we only need to dress the sitting room and kitchen.
Perhaps PropFix needs to spend a day sorting a few niggling jobs.
Perhaps the property already looks fantastic and the only thing that needs changing is the marketing strategy.
We will look at the property, listen to your circumstances and then make recommendations.
Depending on what your property actually needs, we can:
- Prepare it with PropFix – from completely clearing an empty property, cleaning and tidying, through to those smaller maintenance jobs that could make a difference before the next buyer or surveyor walks through the door. PropFix can also carry out a general property “health check”.
- Dress it with The Artizen – sometimes simply furnishing and styling one or two important rooms is enough to help buyers understand the space and create that feeling an empty room can struggle to provide. You certainly don’t have to dress the whole house.
- Sell it using our Express Sale method – once everything is ready, we can launch the property with the legal work prepared early and a concentrated marketing approach, with the aim of agreeing the best possible price and exchanging contracts within 28 days of accepting an offer.
You decide what happens next.
Our job isn’t to persuade you to spend money.
Our job is to work out where spending a little time or money could reasonably help you achieve a better result — and where it won’t.
Empty properties can actually give us an opportunity
There is another way of looking at all this.
An empty property gives us a blank canvas.
We don’t have to ask an owner to live amongst furniture being moved around. We can arrange contractors without constantly disrupting somebody’s day. We can stage rooms specifically for photographs and viewings. And once everything is ready, viewings can usually be arranged very flexibly.
Handled properly, being empty can therefore become an advantage, rather than a problem.
The key is not simply accepting that an empty property looks empty.
It is asking:
What would make a buyer want this property more?
That might be a repair.
It might be some furniture.
It might be a different price or marketing strategy.
It might be getting the legal work ready so that once the right buyer comes along, the sale can move quickly.
Usually, it is a combination of several small things rather than one magic answer.
Is your empty property already on the market?
You don’t have to be starting from scratch either.
If your empty property is already for sale and things aren’t happening as you hoped, we are very happy to take a look.
That isn’t about criticising another estate agent.
Sometimes a property simply needs fresh eyes and a different approach.
We can visit the property, talk through what has happened so far and show you examples of other empty properties where we have used PropFix, property dressing, Express Sale or a combination of the three.
There is no obligation to do everything we suggest — or anything at all.
You may simply come away with a few useful ideas.
But if you’re responsible for an empty property and would like to know what we would do with it, please get in touch with your local Campbells team.
We’ll look at the property first and prescribe the solution afterwards.
Because selling an empty property properly isn’t about doing more for the sake of it.
It’s about doing the right things, in the right order, to give you the best possible chance of achieving the maximum price, in the quickest amount of time, with the least amount of inconvenience.
