Why an Empty Home Loses Value Faster

There are many advantages to having housesitters move in to an empty property, an empty home loses value faster than you might imagine. This is a fact that many homeowners do not realise and regret once damage is done. In this article we explain how and why an empty home can suffer if it is not being cared for as if someone were living in. Read on to learn more.

Your Empty Home Loses Value Faster: How it Erodes Your Property Value

Most homeowners arranging a housesitter are thinking about the practical things. Who will feed the cat, water the tomatoes, take in the parcels and keep the place looking lived in while they are away. Those are all perfectly good reasons to find a sitter. What almost never comes up is money, and specifically the value sitting in the bricks and mortar you are about to leave behind for a few weeks, or in some cases a few months.

an empty home loses value faster than you might imagine and is more vulnerable to weather damage — An empty home loses value faster than you imagine because it no longer has daily maintenance
Photo credit – Tom Fisk

That is worth thinking about before you go. If you have not looked recently at what your property is genuinely worth, you may be surprised how much of that figure rests on condition rather than postcode. Surveyors and buyers are not only pricing your street. They are pricing the state of your roof, your windows and your damp readings. An empty home loses value, it does not sit still and wait for you to take preventative action. It changes, and rarely for the better.

Why an unoccupied home deteriorates faster

A lived-in house is constantly being adjusted and maintained without anyone really thinking about it. Windows are opened, heating cycles on and off, taps run, and small problems get noticed and sorted within a day or two. Remove all of that and the building starts working against itself. An empty home loses value pretty quickly.

Damp is the usual culprit that ensures an empty home loses value. With no ventilation and no regular warmth, moisture collects in cold corners, behind wardrobes and under sinks. Mould that would have been wiped away in October is well established by January. A slow leak beneath a bathroom floor that a resident would catch in an afternoon can run for eight weeks unchecked.

The financial part is what catches people out. Visible damp is a red flag on any survey, and buyers rarely price it at the true cost of repair. A fault that costs a few hundred pounds to put right can knock thousands off an offer, because what the buyer is really pricing in is uncertainty about what lies behind the plaster.

housesitter clearing snow in Winter — resident housesitters can help to maintain the indoors and outdoors of a property
Photo credit – Nataliya Vaitkevich

The difference between a keyholder and a resident housesitter

There is a genuine gap between someone calling in once a week to check there are no leaks or electrical fires and someone actually living in your home. A resident housesitter hears the boiler cycling oddly at two in the morning, the drains not draining and a leaking pipe. They notice the smell of damp on day three rather than day ninety. They spot the drip in the airing cupboard, the tile that came off in a gale, the gutter overflowing down the render.

None of those are dramatic. All of them are cheap to fix early and expensive to fix late, and every one of them shows up in a valuation eventually. Without a resident sitter an empty home loses value faster than you might imagine.

Insurance and the unoccupancy clause

This is the point that most homeowners will miss routinely. The majority of standard UK home insurance policies restrict cover once a property has been unoccupied for a set run of consecutive days, commonly 30, 45 or 60 depending on your policy. Beyond that threshold, claims for escape of water, theft and malicious damage may be reduced or refused outright.

Many insurers will treat a resident housesitter as continued occupancy, but only if you tell them in advance and get the confirmation in writing.

It takes one phone call, and it can be the difference between a covered claim and a large bill that comes straight out of your equity. Find your Housesitter with Housesit Match.

Kerb appeal does not maintain itself

Grass grows. Gutters fill. Hedges creep across the path and leaflets pile up behind the door. A home that looks empty invites the wrong sort of attention, and it signals something to any future valuer about how the property has been looked after. Buyers form an impression in the first ten seconds on the pavement, and it is hard to shift later.

If selling is somewhere on the horizon

Plenty of people discover house sitting, enjoy the freedom, and eventually decide to sell up and travel properly. If that is the direction you are heading, start with realistic numbers rather than hopeful ones.

Compare completed sales on your street rather than asking prices, because the two are often very different. Be honest about condition instead of assuming buyers will overlook the things you stopped noticing years ago. Remember too that the market moves regionally, so a national average in the headlines may bear little relation to your own postcode.

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The quiet return on a good housesitter

housesitter reading a book next to pet dog — Avoid the situation where your empty home loses value by bringing in a housesitter to keep your home alive
Photo credit – Beth Bartholemew

Housesitting is usually sold on convenience and peace of mind about the pets, quite rightly. The financial side is less obvious but no less real. Someone living in your home keeps it warm, ventilated, secure and observed, and those are the four things that stop small problems from turning into valuation problems. Set against what a fortnight of unnoticed damp can cost you, a well matched sitter starts to look less like a favour and more like maintenance.

About the author

Paul Gibbens – Property Expert at Housebuyers4u

He is a property expert at Housebuyers4u, advising UK homeowners on quick house sales, realistic valuations and how to avoid common pitfalls such as unclear fees, hidden option agreements and last-minute price changes.