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Saturday, October 1, 2011

OMG another dumb real estate euphemism…

In the land of euphemisms the new real estate term “Reverse Staging” may rank up there close to the top of the rankings of obfuscous language.
What is reverse staging and how does one do it? Well, it is a polite euphemism for destroying your own house to decrease its value. It basically means that some people de-content their own homes and possibly even cause physical damage to them in an attempt to lower the appraised value for purposes of supporting a short sale.

The reason why people do this is obvious to all, including the banks involved; so it is viewed (correctly) as a form of fraud. The reason why someone in the real estate business decided to come up with this term to somehow make what is happening sound less sinister is less obvious. It’s just people destroying their own homes, just like vandals would. Why call it anything else?
I suppose that one could legally reverse stage one’s own house by substituting lower value light fixtures or making other changes to try to lower the perceived value, without causing damage; however, good appraisers, or good BPO writers, will be able to see past those weak efforts.

So, add yet another obscure term to the real estate lexicon. I guess we need terms like reverse staging to impress the general public that we somehow know and understand things that are going on in real estate better than they do.

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