Open Homes an Open Opportunity for Thieves

(MoneyWatch)  A long time ago, I went with a camera crew to tour a model house in a new community somewhere northwest of Chicago. (In a former life, I was an on-air reporter/producer for WGN-TV, covering real estate and financial topics.) As I remember the house, it was lovely. Beautifully decorated, right down to the dishes, silverware, and wine glasses displayed nicely on the dining room table, as if a fancy sit-down dinner was ready to go the moment we walked out.

Developers were the first stagers before staging became a must-do for residential home sellers. They hired top decorators to come through a model home and create the sense that you wanted to be the people who would live here. The decorations were lavish, including everything from matching towels and soaps in the bathrooms to just-the-right throw pillows on the beds.

Staging a model home even includes building out and tricking out the basement, attic and garden. I've been in model homes that have wine cellars stocked with expensive wines, putting greens, driving ranges (really!), spas, massage rooms, movie theatres with stadium seating and popcorn machines, and full-size basketball courts. All of this stuff is built out with the idea that other buyers will succumb to the vision, purchase these upgrades for their own houses in the community, and eventually the model home will be sold to someone who wants all of these amenities, but doesn't want to wait a year for them to be built.

Back to the story: So we set up the camera pointing past the beautifully set dining room table to the nicely tricked-out kitchen (budding videographers' tip: always shoot with depth behind you, and don't forget to watch the light!) and began the interview. We talked about model homes and decorating for model homes and how much it cost (a lot!). And then the developer said something very interesting.

He said one of the key costs to decorating a model home is replacing all of the stuff that gets stolen. That's right. Thieves posting as prospective buyers come through and take the silverware, plates, and glasses right off the table. I was mesmerized. Where do they put it? In their oversized designer handbags, under their coats, down their pants? The developer didn't really know. All he knew was at the end of the month, he was shelling out more moolah so that his dining room table looked like six people could sit down at a moment's notice.

I hadn't thought about this developer or his house in years, but then I read this story in the New York Times about how today's home-selling technology and home-selling staging finesse have combined to create a market for thieves to steal from beautifully staged homes for sale.

But they're not just taking a placesetting or a set of matching towels. They're cleaning out the house! Apparently, it's not just happening in staged homes, either.