If you are a smoker and you want to sell your house, finding a buyer may be slightly difficult. A new survey found that smoking not only kills you but also knocks off a few thousands from your home's asking price!
According to the survey conducted on a group of realtors in Ontario, Canada, it was found that smoking in the house could bring down a home's resale value by almost 30 percent. Around 401 real estate brokers agreed that a "smoked-in" home is harder to sell than a "fume-clean" one.
Apparently, 15 percent of the homes in Canada have a chain smoker. The study estimates a loss of up to $107,000 on a house that could sell for an average of $369,000 in Ontario.
Around 56 percent of the studied respondents claimed that buyers were less inclined towards buying a home which has been smoked in and around 27 percent of the same said that buyers would refrain from purchasing a smoker's home.
Buyers are reluctant to purchase smoked-in homes because the stench of the cigarettes never seems to leave the interiors. Carpets, butt stains, walls and even furniture stink of the smoke from cigarettes.
"Smoking has a profound impact on how appealing a home is to a prospective buyer. It stains walls and carpets, and leaves a smell that can be hard to eliminate. Many prospective buyers are really put off by homes that have been smoked in and they can be very challenging to sell," David Visentin, a real estate agent and co-host of the W Network's "Love it or List it" program said to the Vancouver Sun.
So how can you avoid losing out thousands from your asking price, even if you are a smoker? Apart from the regular "quit smoking" and "smoke outside" advice, Streetdirectory.com gives you some home-value-malfunction-rescue tips.
Check out the tips, here.
The survey was sponsored by the pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, Canada.