The Risks of Selling a Vacant Home (and How We Eliminate Them)

When a home sits empty, buyers notice. No furniture to suggest scale, no warmth to create emotional connection, and every scratch, stain, and crack on full display. Research from the Real Estate Staging Association consistently shows that vacant homes sell for 5 to 10 percent less than staged equivalents. In Durham Region, where the median resale price hovers near $800,000, that discount translates to $40,000 to $80,000 left on the table.

For executors handling an inherited property, the temptation to leave the home empty after clearing out belongings is understandable. You are already managing grief, legal paperwork, and sibling expectations. But vacancy creates a chain of problems that compound quickly, and most of them are preventable with the right plan.

Standard homeowner insurance policies in Ontario typically include a vacancy clause. If the home has been unoccupied for more than 30 consecutive days, your coverage may be void or severely limited. That means a burst pipe in January, a break-in, or even a slip-and-fall by a neighbour walking up the driveway could leave the estate exposed.

The fix is a vacant home insurance policy, sometimes called a vacancy permit endorsement. Expect to pay 50 to 100 percent more than standard premiums. If the estate budget is already tight, this added cost stings. The alternative is far worse: an uninsured claim that eats into the proceeds your beneficiaries are counting on.

Talk to the estate's insurance broker the same week the home becomes vacant. Do not assume the existing policy covers you. It almost certainly does not.

Vacant homes deteriorate faster than occupied ones. Without daily foot traffic, small leaks go unnoticed. Without heat set to a reasonable temperature, pipes freeze. Without regular lawn care, the municipality may issue a property standards order. In Oshawa and Whitby, bylaw enforcement actively monitors vacant properties, and fines start at $500 per infraction.

We recommend a weekly check-in protocol: verify the furnace is running, check for signs of water intrusion, clear flyers from the mailbox (a full mailbox signals vacancy to anyone watching), and keep the exterior tidy. If you live out of town, we coordinate this as part of our listing preparation.

Break-ins, squatters, and vandalism are not hypothetical risks for vacant homes. Durham Regional Police report that property crimes spike during winter months, and vacant homes are disproportionately targeted. Signs of vacancy, such as no lights on timers, no vehicles in the driveway, and accumulated snow on walkways, make a home an easy mark.

Simple deterrents include smart light timers, a Ring or similar doorbell camera, and asking a neighbour to park in the driveway occasionally. These cost under $300 total and dramatically reduce risk.

When we list a vacant home, we stage it. Full stop. Our staging partners furnish key rooms so buyers can visualize living there, and so photographs show warmth rather than emptiness. Staged homes photograph better, show better, and sell faster.

For estate properties that need renovation before listing, our Renos for Revenue program covers the cost upfront, manages every trade, and collects payment only from the sale proceeds. That means the home is occupied by contractors during the renovation phase, reducing the vacancy window, and it hits the market fully updated and staged rather than sitting empty and collecting dust.

We also install lockboxes with electronic access tracking, so every showing is logged. You know exactly who entered the home and when.

Vacancy is not just an inconvenience. It is a financial risk, a legal liability, and a pricing penalty. The longer a home sits empty, the more it costs the estate. If you are managing an inherited property in Durham Region and the home is currently vacant, reach out before the small problems become expensive ones. We have managed dozens of estate sales where the home was vacant at the start, and in every case, the right preparation strategy made a measurable difference in the final sale price.