Seeing Is Believing

Trying to sell your model home? Forget aspiring actors. Throw away the plastic food. Why even bother when you can have the real thing?

The fragrance of sage-scented candles and sounds of jazz fill the air of a 2,600-square-foot house a block from the beach. Tiger-striped chairs flank tables crafted from exotic woods. Photos of a chubby baby hang on the walls. Whoever occupies 211 Windward Way, they seem to live the good life. 

Too good to be true, in fact. The house is owned by a builder, who hasn't been able to sell it for more than a year. And while someone really does live here, it's as part of an elaborate bit of stagecraft aimed at moving Southern California's echoing inventory of luxury vacant homes. This $1.2 million seaside pied-a-terre is occupied by Johnna Clavin, a 45-year-old Los Angeles event planner and decorator who has seen business slow. In exchange for giving the townhouse a stylishly lived-in look, she gets to stay there at a steep discount and stands to earn a bonus if the house sells fast. "This is the perfect scenario for the times that we're in," she says.

It's the logical evolution of home staging: living props, that actually live there. Life becomes theatre, which becomes sales technique. Amazing:

Ms. Clavin, and her furniture, beat out 46 applicants who auditioned for the homeowner role, says Quality First's owner, Mary Heineke. "I already know they can't afford the house," Ms. Heineke says. "I want to know if they can replicate a person who can afford that house."

Showhomes Management LLC, a franchise operation based in Nashville, has 350 "resident managers" living in homes for sale in 46 high-end markets, including in Florida, Arizona and Illinois. The company has seen revenues increase 88% since last year, says vice president Thomas Scott. Unoccupied staged houses aren't selling as well as those with people in them, he says, "because people can still tell they're vacant."

(Architects spend day upon day imagining how people will inhabit the spaces they design, and doesn't that make them especially perceptive potential "resident managers"? Just a thought.)

I believe this could be taken further still. I'd like to see a reality show with a battle between these resident managers as the premise; hire some folks and see whose sense of self and staging acumen closes the deal the fastest. In the meantime, we can follow them on Twitter (borrowing and twisting this premise), and ask ourselves whether we think their tweets--not just their thoughts about the home, but also their thoughts about the rhythms of their day-to-day, their hopes and fears, the ineffable stuff of (their) lives--resonate with us personally. I mean, when we bring real people and their stuff into the equation of selling a home, isn't the resulting set of impressions inevitably more complex and therefore more compelling? 

John Humphrey, 63, of Carlsbad, Calif., toured the property this month. He was taken in, imagining the owner as a wealthy "world traveler," using it as a second home. He thought the owner was "maybe a Fortune 1000 vice president...45 to early 50s." Told that the house was occupied by a woman who'd lived there less than a week, he was briefly flummoxed. "It reminds me of a movie," he said. But he didn't feel hoodwinked. "I'm impressed with somebody who can create that atmosphere," he said. "No question I'd live there if I can get something else unloaded here in a hurry." 

More than homeownership, architecture, furniture, or even marketing, it's our desires to step into the shoes of others that rise to the surface. Or if not to become them, it's a desire to at least be close to them, to know them personally, to join them in their enviable lifestyle. Heady stuff.

Comments

[Valerie]

There is a new national website that connects vacant houses with people who want to be live in stagers, like in this article. It's www.myvacanthouse.com. To become a live in stagers you have to create a free profile on the site including photos of your furniture. The site is new so it's still building posts, but it's worth it.

[Chris]

hey Valerie--thanks for the tip. Anyone want to be a live-in stager?

[Thomas Scott]

Thanks for the blog mention!
Although Showhomes is not new - we have been around since the 1980s - we are really growing these days. Check us out to see if we are recruiting in your area: www.showhomes.com