If you have a vacant house, you probably have some issues going on with that house. Vacant houses there’s a lot that can come up and it can cause a lot of issues and some stuff may not be so obvious. I want to go down through and talk about some of these things and what to look for. If you do have a vacant house this will you know keep some of these issues from happening and you’ll get want to get it occupied or sold as quickly as possible.
Squatters
There are squatters out there a squatter is someone that is looking for a vacant house. They are looking for an opportunity to get a free living space and what they’re going to do is look for your house with tall grass. Maybe the windows are boarded up. Maybe there’s there’s some type of sign that they know it’s vacant.
There might not be a car in the driveway and they’re going to come and they’re going to move in your house at that point. You’re going to have to evict them to get them out or they can cause a lot of damage they could do drugs in your house that could cause damage and there’s just a lot of bad things that could happen… You want to avoid squatters at all costs. If you do have a vacant house try to make it look occupied by parking a car in the driveway.
Maintenance Issues
There’s a lot of maintenance that gets deferred with a vacant house if you’re not working on the house and you’re not keeping up with it. Things just start to deteriorate and that’s just due to not being there things happen. Your house could start to deteriorate due to no one living there and taking care of it. We’ve seen houses where the roof has caved in, foundation of house has shifted, windows got broken out, etc. There’re all kinds of things that happen and once that happens, it’s downhill from there. In one case the windows were broken out of this house and it was raining in it, which caused all the hardwood floors to be completely soggy in the whole house. The studs and everything were soggy from all the water and moisture damage and the house was scrape, meaning it was sold for land value only.
Code Violations
The next one will be code violations. If your house is vacant and you don’t have somebody there taking care of it your grass is going to get tall and you’re going to get code violations and that’s going to cost you money. You will get fines in the mail from the city. And what happens is if you don’t pay them or you don’t see them coming in, they’ll start cutting the grass for you and when they start cutting the grass for you that bill goes way up and it gets very very expensive. You do not want the city cutting your grass. You do not want code violations on your house. Oftentimes with vacant houses this happens. It’s kind of one of those things where one thing leads to the next you start getting code violations and then the squatters see that your house is vacant and before you know it, these things just keep rolling on top of each other and can lose a lot of money.
Loss Of Money
Obviously if your house is vacant you’re not making money on. Which comes down to bills, taxes, etc. If you do have the utilities on you may still have to pay a base rate on your utilities. You can’t avoid the taxes, even if your house is vacant. You’ll still have tax bill coming and you’ll still have other bills around the house. Maybe you still have a mortgage in place. Either way. You’re going to be losing money. If you don’t have a renter in there and you’re not living in it.
Rodents / Infestations
The next one will be animal infestations. Animals know when your house is vacant too surprisingly! They move on in and you might get squirrels in the attic or raccoons, multiple types of bug infestation, cockroaches Etc. This will also destroy your house slowly when they get in there and it’s a pain and it’s expensive to remove them.
Vandalism
The last one would be vandalism. Kids will be kids and if they see a vacant house, they might, want to break out the windows for fun and could break in and explore around or cause more damage to the house with graffiti etc. These things all happen to vacant houses and you must keep a close eye on your property to avoid these issues! Cameras are a great idea for vacant properties.
These are a few things to watch out for if you do have a vacant house be very cautious and be very aware. Keep a close eye on your house! If you do have a vacant house and you need to sell it and maybe you have some of these issues going on at the moment, give us a call.
We will buy your house with all these issues present and we will handle these issues for you and take care of them to get them off your plate. Feel free to reach out to us at LVN Real Estate. We buy vacant houses. We buy any type of houses that have these sorts of issues and we’ll take care of them for you.
Thanks for watching and hope to hear from you soon.
