Beyond White Walls and Empty Rooms
How Best to Sell Vacant Home Depends on Why It's That Way

By Dan Rafter
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, November 15, 2008

Dorothy LaChapelle considers herself fortunate: It took her just 4 1/2 months to sell her vacant home in Herndon. And during the time it sat on the market, the 1955 brick rambler attracted three offers, which LaChapelle considers a good number these days.

It's a challenge to sell any home in this real estate market. But selling a vacant home is an even bigger task, real estate agents say. Many house hunters can't picture their furniture in a house that is completely empty. The blank walls and empty rooms leave a negative impression with many.

Although it may be more of a challenge, it is possible to sell a vacant home, agents said. Some empty houses may need to be staged -- that is, furnished and decorated specifically with the goal of luring buyers. But others, depending on their location and, most important, their price, attract offers despite their bare rooms, agents said.

LaChapelle, for instance, gives much of the credit for her sale to her decision to have the home staged. She feared that an empty house would look too cold and barren.

The stager filled those empty rooms with furniture and art -- most stagers can supply furnishings from rentals or their own stash. The tactic worked, LaChapelle said.

"I can walk into an empty room and see the possibilities for those rooms," she said. "But I have a bunch of friends who can't. I think hiring the stager paid off. I think getting three offers in this market is pretty darn good."

Greg Lydell, owner of Select Realty in Prince William County, said the struggling economy and real estate market are working together to make some vacant homes hot sellers in his submarket, the part of the region hit hardest by foreclosures.

"Instead of allowing the foreclosures to go on the market, the banks are trying to sell these empty homes quickly," Lydell said. "They need cash . . . so they are pricing them aggressively. Some are even doing repairs -- painting the walls, putting in new carpets -- and still selling them at very aggressive prices."

The key for sellers and their agents is knowing how much charm -- in furniture or art -- that a vacant home needs to impress potential buyers.

There generally are two kinds of vacant homes. There are those in foreclosure, the kind that Lydell and his company have been selling. Then there are those that are normal resales, but for whatever reason their owners are no longer living in them.

It's the second category, with their higher price tags, that are more difficult to sell when empty, agents say.

"A vacant house leaves no impression on buyers. In the world of sales, no impression is the same as a negative impression," said Jane Fairweather, an agent with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Bethesda. "If you're only competing against vacant homes, you're still okay. But if a buyer sees three vacant homes and then a fourth one that is done up smashingly, the buyer is going to remember that fourth home."

The challenges of selling a vacant home are especially relevant today. It's taking longer to sell homes, and foreclosures across the country have hit record levels. These are two reasons why, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 18.6 million U.S. homes that were unoccupied during the second quarter of this year. That was a record, and up 6.9 percent from the same period last year.

Bob Callis, with the Census Bureau, added that about 14.2 percent of all housing units in the United States were vacant last month.

There are several steps sellers can take to help move their vacant homes. Susan Mekenney, an agent with Re/Max Allegiance in Alexandria, said it's most important for sellers to keep their houses "squeaky clean." Owners should add a fresh coat of paint before putting their empty homes on the market, she said.

"You can't hide anything behind the furniture and wall hangings," Mekenney said. "If nothing is in the home, the only things you can see are the walls. If the walls are dirty, or if the paint is old and faded, that's what the eyes will focus on."

Everything in an empty home must be in working order, she added. If the hardwood floors are scuffed, potential buyers will notice immediately. If a long crack runs along the ceiling, shoppers will have nothing to distract them from it.

These flaws, which people might overlook in a house filled with furniture and artwork, suddenly became serious problems in the eyes of potential buyers.

"The sellers are better off making all repairs, cosmetic, mechanical, all of them," Mekenney said. "If not, the buyers will beat that seller up. It's just that kind of market. In a vacant house, you can't hide sins. They jump right out at you."

This is why Monica Murphy, owner of Preferred Staging in Alexandria, recommends that homeowners hire someone like her. Stagers argue that hiring them, which can cost thousands of dollars for a big job, is cost-effective because it helps a house sell more quickly, for more money. Murphy says that homes she works on sell in an average of six weeks.

By putting furniture in an empty room, sellers do two things, Murphy said: They show buyers how much furniture a room can hold. They also highlight a workable layout, showcasing exactly how, for instance, a large couch, entertainment center and love seat can fit in a living room that may have seemed too small without those pieces strategically arranged.

"To really capture a sale, buyers need to be able to mentally move into the home they are considering," Murphy said. "When you stage a vacant home, you're providing an example for a buyer. The worst thing you can do is make your potential buyer guess. You need to do the work for them."

Not all real estate agents agree that staging is always best.

For instance, Chuck Burger, an agent with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage's Capitol Hill office, said the market in the District has some quirks that reduce the need for staging, even in empty homes.

Burger estimates that only 10 to 15 percent of vacant houses in the District are staged because so many of the homes in the city are small. Agents usually turn to stagers when their vacant properties are larger and more opulent, he said.

In addition, many people looking at houses in the city have purchased homes before, he said. They already know how to see how an empty home would look with furniture.

Burger does recommend that owners of vacant condominiums stage their properties before putting them on the market. Condo buyers are more often first-timers who may not have the same ability to visualize themselves in bedrooms and kitchens that are empty of furniture, tables and chairs, he said.

Burger also recommends staging when homes have odd-sized rooms. Perhaps there's a small room in the corner that may seem to have no real function. But if a stager puts a small desk and chair in that tiny space, the odd room now has a purpose that buyers can identify, Burger said.

Burger also stressed that sellers must take extra care to maintain the outside of their vacant homes, whether they have staged the property or not.

"If buyers pull up and see weeds outside, that immediately creates a feeling that the home isn't being cared for," Burger said. "If you leave a property behind, it has to be even more spotless than when you were living there. That maintenance starts at the front lawn and goes all the way to the back lawn."

While others may worry about selling vacant homes, Lydell is more concerned about houses that aren't empty. He is struggling to sell an owner-occupied townhouse in Woodbridge. That's because its price tag -- which started at $160,000 and is now $139,000 -- is too high to compete with the seven other vacant homes on the block, the result of foreclosures. Buyers can purchase those empty houses for $100,000 to $120,000, Lydell said.

"They may have to change some things if they buy those houses," Lydell said. "They have to paint blue or pink walls, but a lot of buyers would rather do that than pay $30,000 more for what is basically the same type of property."

As an example, Lydell points to a vacant home he sold in late October in Woodbridge. The single-family house, which had sold two years ago for $500,000, had fallen into foreclosure. Lydell received eight offers on the property, and sold it for $260,000.

"That's the market here now. The vacant homes are selling well because people love the deals they can get on them," Lydell said.

Diane Piper hopes the condo in Alexandria that she is trying to sell will move soon. She and her husband are now living in a single-family house in Fairfax County, a residence with more space for visiting grandchildren.

The Pipers put their condo on the market in April and moved out in July -- taking all their furniture, photos and art with them. About two months ago, they decided to have the home professionally staged.

"Every time we went back to the condo and saw it without any furniture, it just looked so bare," Piper said.

As of mid-November, the staging hadn't resulted in a sale. But Piper is optimistic that this will soon change.

"Now that the election is over, and things are settling down, I think sales will pick up," she said.