Instead of being model-home perfect, the master bath was set up to look like Mom had just used it. A hair dryer was plugged into the wall, and deodorant, hair spray, lip gloss and bobby pins left on the tiled countertop. Clothes hung in the adjoining walk-in closet, and there was a worn pair of sneakers on the floor.
Although "HomeLife" takes the idea to the extreme, real estate marketers have been zeroing in on the consumer's need to connect to a home, said Delores Conway, a professor at USC's Lusk Center for Real Estate. Buyers, she said, have come to expect granite countertops, stainless appliances and other material features of a new home, and they want something more.
"The trend now is to market a lifestyle, not just the building," she said.
Conway stressed that creative marketing is crucial because with rising mortgage rates and a growing supply of unsold homes, the once-sizzling market has cooled off. Southern California home sales fell 17.5 percent in June from a year earlier, making the sales count the lowest for June since 1999, according to DataQuick Information Systems of San Diego. Prices in the six-county area climbed to a new peak in June but at the slowest pace in more than six years.