Mansions for price of apartments

By MoneySense Staff on July 6, 2010
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

A U.S. home staging company with plans to expand to Canada rents out mansions for as low as $1,500 per month. The catch? You can get kicked out at anytime.

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It’s not uncommon to hear of someone spending $1,500 on rent for a one or two-bedroom apartment in one of Canada’s bigger cities. In certain places in the U.S., however, you can rent a lakeside mansion for the same price. Showhomes, a home staging company with locations across the U.S., helps sellers furnish and decorate their homes in attempt to make the homes more attractive to potential buyers. But couches and paintings aren’t all — Showhomes believes that buyers are more likely to desire occupied homes. “Vacant homes are simply vulnerable to lowball offers,” marketing VP Thomas Scott told the Financial Post. That’s why the company rents the homes until they’re purchased. The company is looking to expand to Canada — Toronto will come first — but for now, Showhomes is looking for occupants for $10-million mansions on the slopes of Park City, Utah, the high-end ski resort town that hosts the Sundance Film Festival. The monthly fee could be as low as $2,000. Some of the catches are that you have to furnish the home yourself with “beautiful furniture,” you must keep it impeccably clean at all times because viewings may occur with as little as an hour’s notice, you have to ask permission to entertain guests, and you must move out whenever the house is sold. Scott says homes of this value are often on the market for about a year or two, so it’s unlikely you’ll get kicked out shortly after moving in. Because only a minority of people can afford a mansion, these houses see far less visits from potential buyers than most other homes on the market.