Staging Vacant Homes - Who are you really fooling? 

It takes more than furniture, art pieces and a few carefully placed articles to sell a home.  There are other senses that can give away the facts of the home when no one is living there.  Our senses can easily alert us to the most obvious of circumstance.  Smells, odors, and a lack of them can tell a lot about the home we are showing.  Our eyes lead us to the most minute of details that may alert us the home is vacant or perhaps a divorce is taking place.  Many in our industry believe that Staging is the cure all to sell a home.  It may be, but you must pay attention to the details.  Weekly cleaning, opening windows, getting an exchange of air in the home, flushing toilets, cleaning windows, and placing bleach in sinks may greatly improve your chances of selling a vacant home.  Success is always in the details, and if you are going to stage a home please try to pay attention to even the subliminal.  It works.

When showing vacant homes this weekend I became quickly aware that none of the homes I was showing were occupied in spite of wha the listing agents tried to imply.  It was very obvious they were not occupied at all but rather they were all staged.  The reason an experienced agent can advise their clients about the home is that they have been in the business for a number of years.  Drawing on their past experience they can easily recognize when a home is lived in or the owners are just away for the weekend.  How?  By just being very observant and looking closely at the details that are available.   There is no magic.  A new agent or a novice to real estate may be easily fooled, but that is their own problem.  The signals are all very obvious, and all you have to do is pay attention.  Here is a partial list of items I would look for.

How to determine homes are not occupied:

• Air in home is stale, musty, or a mildew smell
• Cobwebs in areas that should be active areas of home
• Dust on counter-tops
• Stove and oven are just too clean
• Lack of any cooking odors
• Lack of heat or air conditioning
• Stale smells and odors in the the home - there has been no exchange of air in the home.
• Toilets flushed or rings in bowl.
• Lack of lawn and exterior care.
• Lack of clothes in a Master Suite Closet.
• Staged Clothes in Master Suite Closets are from another era.
• There is no garbage in the receptacles
• Lack of perishables in the refrigerator
• Leaves on walkways
• Noticeable insects or ants activity remains undisturbed - no one has tried to eradicate.
• Perishables in Refrigerator are all expired (Milk with an expiration date of August!)
• Most homes were staged very poorly with furniture that really did not even belong in a Goodwill store.  
• Uncut lawn or weeds in landscaping.
• News papers on walkways - most especially a lot of wet soggy
• Debris on lawns
• Unattended water intrusions from storms
• Home maintenance that is not addresses - missing roof shingles, overflow from hot water heaters etc.