The petite woman moving out of a $300,000 Germantown, Tenn., home with her 9-year-old son had been no ordinary neighbor the past six months in the leafy Oakleigh subdivision.
About a year ago, the same Brandi Jackson left a $700,000 home in Collierville, Tenn., after living in luxury there just 30 days.
And last fall, she moved out of a $460,000 home in another posh neighborhood in the community, having lived there five months.
Jackson is not flipping, squatting, evading or even waffling about her choice of neighborhoods. She’s helping sell houses.
She’s a “home manager” for Showhomes Memphis.
The franchise screens and places renters like Jackson — and their furniture — into vacant homes that are on the market.
The house seller pays Showhomes a $500 setup fee and gets someone to live in and furnish their home, making it easier to sell. The renter also is responsible for the utilities, renter’s insurance and lawn care.
The house sitter enjoys living in a very nice home and neighborhood for perhaps one-third of what rent would normally be. And Showhomes, which recruits both the sitters and the houses, receives the rent from the sitter.
The caretaker agrees to have the house ready for agents to show on short notice, and to not be present when the house is shown.
Real-estate agent Donna Northcutt was so happy with the results at Braystone, she arranged to have Jackson move from there to another house on the market.
The first house had been for sale for more than a year, but sold within 30 days after Jackson, her son and “eclectic/modern” furniture moved in.
The next house had been on the market for more than a year, and sold five months after Jackson moved in.
The last home had been on the market for 2-1/2 years, and sold five months after Jackson moved in.
Having furniture in the house makes a big difference, Northcutt said.
“A lot of (prospective home buyers) think the empty rooms look too small, say, for a king-size bed,” Northcutt said. “But if a king-size bed is in there they say, ‘Oh, it looks great.’ They don’t see the size of the room very well without furniture in it.”
Early last year Jackson was going through a divorce, moving out of her home, and was looking for a place with at least three bedrooms for all her furniture.
She found a place on Craigslist. The rent was $1,500 a month to live in a $700,000 home.
“You can’t beat that,” Jackson said.
Among the amenities were a media room, game room, view of a lake, walk-in shower and upscale appliances.
Of course, neighbors were quick to approach and ask, “Did you buy?”
“You tell them, ‘No, I’m staging the home.’ That piques their curiosity.”
Jeff Ross bought the then-dormant Showhomes Memphis franchise about 18 months ago. He has owned the Little Rock, Ark., franchise eight years.
“With our success in Little Rock, it made sense to go two hours east to a bigger market,” Ross said.
Typically, Showhomes works with homes priced at more than $200,000.
The house sitter must have nice furniture and no pets, must not smoke, and never refuse a showing on as little as an hour’s notice.
“The house is to be immaculate,” Ross said.
Which is fine by Jackson, an organized person by nature.
The key, she said, is to always keep the house clean enough so that it would never take long to make things just right.
Sitters can rent half-million-dollar houses for $900 to $1,200 a month, Ross said.
Jackson was paying $1,000 for her last home, a $300,000 place in Oakleigh.
But this week she made her last move, at least for a while. The former teacher, who plans to enter law school, took advantage of the buyer’s market and bought her own home in Cordova, Tenn.
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