Sellers turn to live-in home stagers

by Kara G. Morrison – December. 7, 2009
The Arizona Republic

Last year, when Jim Guido needed to downsize and sell his home, his biggest concern was keeping his children in the same school.

That’s when he stumbled across an ad that looked like a mistake: $1,200 per month for a 2,800-square-foot house with a private pool in a gated Cave Creek community.

“It was really a godsend for me,” said Guido. “The house was perfect for us. It fit all our needs.” Not only was the rent price correct, Guido said pool care and yard care were included. Their duty as “home tenders” was merely to furnish the home nicely and keep it spotless for Realtors to show on a moment’s notice.

Home Managers Jeff and Paige Hren

Seven months later, the home is under contract at a price that pleased its sellers.

“I think it worked out for both of us,” Guido said. “The buyers kept saying how much they liked our furnishings.”

In this down housing market, companies are matching sellers with live-in home stagers in a bid to give them an edge. Locally, Showhomes trains home “managers” or “tenders” who are technically independent contractors. They pay a fraction of typical rent, utilities and renter’s and keep the home looking like a model one for buyers.

On the downside, they also have to move – sometimes quickly – when a property sells.

“We say it’s a great lifestyle for someone who can live an organized life,” said Dana Reynolds, who along with Kathy Haase is a local Showhomes franchise owner. “It’s kind of a hugely coveted group to be in.”

With a flood of unsold homes on the market, Showhomes works with homeowners, Realtors, banks and builders. Their clients get a nicely decorated home, lower because the home is occupied, and ultimately a chance to sell for more than the vacant home might fetch.

Haase and Reynolds, who specialize in $1 million to $5 million homes, said their program continues to grow, boosted by the number of vacant luxury There are more than 3,000 luxury homes for sale in Greater Phoenix that are listed for $1 million or more, said Mike Orr, founder of the real-estate research Web site cromfordreport.com.

Showhomes has more than three dozen active home managers and several bank-owned houses lined up to fill – in part to mitigate liability from unsupervised pools.

Showhomes, charges the owner a pre-negotiated fee at closing and keep the managers’ monthly fees in exchange for professionally staging the entire home. Owners like this arrangement because it saves them from making expensive monthly staging payments.

Greg Dols, assistant vice president for consumer lending at Gilbert-based Bank, is working with Showhomes to bring in more managers for its bank-owned luxury homes and to minimize their risk of vandalism.

“We’ve had one (vacant) home broken into five times,” said Dols, adding he thinks the Showhomes program ultimately makes the homes more desirable to buyers.

“I’ve gone into a lot of empty homes, and they just look cold and uninviting,” Dols said. “I believe when we do get a buyer for the (Showhomes-managed) home, it’s going to sell for more.”

Showhomes says it’s a huge savings over merely staging a home with furnishings. Haase said staging-only services for luxury homes can cost clients about $4,500 to $6,500 per month with a four-month minimum, without any of the added benefits of keeping a home occupied.

“If I have 10 homes available, I will get 100 calls a day,” she said. “We have to go through a lot of calls before we find the right person to live in these homes. We’ve never had to kick anyone out for not following the rules because we do so much up front.”

Reynolds said some of their home managers have been through a foreclosure or a divorce; others simply want a short-term obligation while they adjust to new surroundings.

The latter was the case for Paige and Jeff Hren, who split their time between Phoenix and California. Jeff, an executive chef, and Paige, an attorney, pay $1,800 per month to manage a 5,845-square-foot, $2.6 million home in north Scottsdale’s Mirabel Golf Club.

“We’re getting extremely spoiled,” Paige Hren said of the home’s luxury features, including the kitchen’s two slab-granite islands and Wolf ovens, a master suite with his-and-hers vanities, toilets and walk-in closets, plus automated glass pocket doors in the great room that open to a private pool and a view of the 11th fairway.

When they saw an advertisement about the home-manager program, the Hrens admit they were skeptical, thinking the deal was too good to be true. So far, she said the only real challenge has been the 10-day window to move in and furnish the home.

Haase, also a home manager, said most of her managers pay $1,500 to $3,500 per month plus utilities, which can average $400 to $600 per month for a large luxury home.

Both programs screen the prospective managers/tenders and their furnishings to make sure they’re compatible with the home’s style and scale. Showhomes does not accept pets and prohibits smoking inside the home. HomeTenders makes exceptions for some pets and prohibits smoking inside or in front of the home.

Scottsdale Realtor Karen Picarello said she is baffled that more sellers don’t utilize the service.

“It’s such a good deal,” she said. ” . . . If it (a home) doesn’t present well, it may still sell, but you’ll lose a lot of money.”

Brandon Norwood is another Valley resident who decided to downsize while maintaining a luxury lifestyle. He said he was paying about $8,000 per month to rent a 5-acre Troon North estate when he found out about Showhomes.

For the bargain price of about $3,700 per month including utilities, the 33-year-old sports agent opted to manage a new $3.8 million home in Paradise Valley.

“Who wouldn’t want to save $40,000 a year?” said Norwood, who relocated to Phoenix from Seattle, where he still owns a home. “It’s been great. We’re in a beautiful place, and business is going well.”

Norwood said so far being a home manager has been easy.

“You make the bed when you get up, tie the curtains back and spray the sink,” he said.

Showhomes pays for a manager’s move if the homes sell within 30 days; HomeTenders covers moves if the property sells within 60 days.

“I moved five times last year,” Haase said, adding that in today’s market, most of her home managers stay in their properties about six months.