Family Sold Separately – Temporary Tenants Showcase Foreclosed Homes

Real estate is taking a cue from the toy industry, or so it seems. Remember watching a commercial for a dollhouse or something, and seeing all the little dolls inside with their little doll furniture and thinking how great it looked, and how much you wanted it, and how that down-payment wasn’t really so bad?
Okay, maybe it didn’t go down exactly like that. But this is virtually what’s happening in homes across the country. The Chicago Tribune reports that sellers of foreclosed properties are coming up with a novel solution to combat the wear and tear that vacancy often leaves on a property – by filling the homes with tenants and their pretty furniture.
“Staging” homes has long been a par-for-the-course means of attracting buyers, but this is taking things to a whole new level. The mounting numbers of vacant and foreclosed homes on the market today have posed a unique problem for sellers – even at rock-bottom prices, nobody wants to buy a house that’s been empty for months. It’s simply too risky to buy as-is when no one’s been keeping things up. Furthermore, there’s a deeper psychological reluctance about stepping into a space that bears the scars of foreclosure and eviction  – at least with tenants in place, there’s one happy family in between you and whatever brought the home into foreclosure.
Of course, sellers choose their pretend-tenants very carefully – only pet-free neat-niks equipped with gorgeous traditional furnishings need apply. And unlike your inner child, who was secretly devastated to hear that all the furniture and dolls were sold separately, the buyers are thrilled to have a big empty house – now that they know how “lived-in” it can look.