OCEANSIDE, Calif. — 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.
Home “staging” companies charge owners several thousand dollars to fill houses with attractive furniture — but no human props. Faux homeowners could be the next big thing in staging. They supply “that little extra mint on the pillow,” says Steve Rodgers, president of Windermere Exclusive Properties in San Diego, which has the listing on Windward Way. “Down-low and subtle is sometimes good.”
Ms. Clavin responded to a Craigslist ad placed by Quality First Home Marketing, a San Diego startup. It aims to fill high-end empty houses with occupants who play the part of happy homeowners, in a bid to remove the price-depressing stigma of vacancy.
When a real-estate agent phones, Ms. Clavin says, “ ’I live here’ — because technically, I do,” and provides a broker’s number before the caller inquires further. She must keep the house spotless between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. She usually gets only five minutes to light the candles, flip on music and disappear before a showing. If she has more time, she’ll bake cookies to scent the home.
If the place sells in 90 days, she’ll earn a relocation bonus, and move on to another empty asset.
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.”
There are several other resident-manager companies, most based in the South, trying to cash in by helping move bank-owned and vacant properties. But few individual operators have been in the game as long as Ms. Heineke, who recently re-entered it in California, the state with the largest number of foreclosures in the nation — and plenty of aspiring actors.
Ms. Heineke, who once worked as a resident manager, ran a business using the idea during the last California property slump, in the early 1990s. She recalls one resident manager in Malibu who refused to stop meditating during a showing. Then there was the one who sunbathed nude, and several who hid lockbox keys so they could sleep in. When the market rebounded, she closed up shop.
This year, with California again in the tank, Ms. Heineke, a Realtor with degrees in performing arts and counseling, decided to try again. She has three more managers waiting to move into vacant homes.
Temporary occupants bring their own furnishings and insurance to empty houses, and maintain the home, lawn and pool. They pay utilities and a monthly fee well below market rent. “They are not tenants, because they are instrumental in marketing the property,” says Ms. Heineke. And besides, “a tenant isn’t seen as an asset.”
On a recent day, Andy Hutchinson, a hotel-furnishings consultant, interviewed to manage a duplex in Encinitas. Ms. Heineke cut to the point. “Has this transition in the housing market gotten you in some way?”
He nodded. “You’re in a transition,” she said. “The owner wants to sell this house. My job is to put the two of you together.”
Mr. Hutchinson has a young daughter. “Great!” said Ms. Heineke. “She’ll have a cute little pink room upstairs and we’ll just put all the Barbies away” for showings. He said he’d think it over.
Ms. Clavin edged out other applicants for 211 Windward Way, in part by submitting an article in O, Oprah Winfrey’s magazine, on her skills. In Hollywood, Ms. Clavin says she could organize a gala for 600 in 48 hours. She had three days to move in and stage the home, where she pays $800 a month to live. “I’m a gypsy at heart,” says Ms. Clavin, who moved back to California after a brief stint in New York.
The home’s builder, Paul Zocco, hoped to sell it before he finished it. That was two years ago.
“When things are slow like this, you need to take a step back and think conceptually,” he says, prompting his interest in getting someone to give the place a lived-in look. “We didn’t just get somebody who moved in with their Ikea furniture, we got a professional decorator,” he says, referring to Ms. Clavin.
He turned to Ms. Heineke. “So we could actually have her wear an apron and bake chocolate-chip cookies?”
The photos on the walls are of Ms. Clavin’s son, now in his 20s. Lamps came from a friend’s storage unit; an African dining table is a boyfriend’s; the potted palms cost $15 at Home Depot.
In the entry foyer, Ms. Clavin set up a yoga studio with a fountain, a seashell chandelier and billowing curtains from Wal-Mart. She hung a Buddha on the wall, but the real-estate agent nixed it.
“We want to have a neutral impression of the property from a political or religious perspective,” Ms. Heineke says.
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.”
Write to Elizabeth Williamson at elizabeth.williamson@wsj.com
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