Staging 'twist' helps vacant homes sell
By Jay MacDonald • Bankrate.com

The basketball gods were smiling on Trenton Hassell when the Dallas Mavericks acquired the 6-foot-5-inch swingman from the Minnesota Timberwolves last September.

After all, Dallas still had Dirk Nowitzki and much of the nucleus that took them to the 2006 NBA Finals. Meanwhile, the eternally struggling T-Wolves had just dealt their lone superstar, Kevin Garnett, to the Boston Celtics.

But for Hassell and his wife, Tiffany, selling their Minneapolis home was no slam-dunk.

"We had been out of the house since November," Tiffany recalls. "It was staged but it didn't do so well. When our contract with our Realtor ended, our new Realtor recommended Showhomes."

In early July, Showhomes, a home staging and residence management franchise with 35 locations nationwide, restaged the Hassell home with furniture and artwork from one of their resident manager couples, who promptly moved in.

The resident managers would not have time to get comfortable: The home sold the first day for $835,000, just shy of the $849,000 listing price.

"If I had known about Showhomes before, I would have done it a long time ago," Tiffany Hassell says.

How it works
The Hassells are typical of homeowners who have discovered they can save time and money by opening their home to a home manager for a lived-in look that really sells.

A 2004 Showhomes survey of 800 top-producing Realtors found that vacant homes spend an extra 30 says to 60 days on the market and sell for at least 10 percent less than occupied homes.

In the past, absentee homeowners like the Hassells had to pay for upkeep and utilities on an empty home. They also shelled out a monthly fee for a houseful of staged furniture that may or may not have helped the cause.

Now, couples like the Hassells are finding that moving in home managers with their own upscale furniture and artwork keeps the home in show condition, speeds the sale and fetches top dollar. The upfront staging fee is often quickly recouped by having the utilities paid by the home manager.

A few regional companies offer combination home staging and residence management services. They include Prestige Properties, Castle Keepers and Mansion Minders in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex; and Creative Show Homes and No Vacancy in Atlanta.

However, Showhomes is the only brand offering these services nationally.

Showhomes' origin in the 1986 oil bust in Oklahoma City and Dallas positioned it well, not only to compete effectively during the housing boom of the new millennium -- when staging was all the rage -- but to remain viable when the subprime bubble burst.

"We're poised this year for our fifth consecutive year of double-digit growth," says Thom Scott, director of operations for Showhomes.