Home managers live opulently, temporarily

Jim and Laura Fisher can’t leave dirty dishes in the sink or children’s toys on the floor. They might have to rush out of their home on 20 minutes’ notice. And they never know when they’ll need to move into another house. Quickly.

The tradeoff: The Fishers live like multimillionaires, in opulent, expansive homes, some overlooking the water. They have no mortgage and get a discount on rent.

These self-professed “neat freaks” are home managers, occupying upscale houses on the market in Orange County, Calif. They work for Showhomes, a national home staging company with franchises around the country. Right now, they’re living in a new, 6,500-squarefoot, Tuscan-style home in downtown Huntington Beach, Calif.

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The Fishers moved into the house when it was being offered as a short sale for $2,395,000. It went into foreclosure but stayed on the market.

All the oversize furnishings; seven flat-screen TVs; big, heavy home accents and closets full of clothing belong to the Fishers. But Jim Fisher, 50, says moving is no problem. They’ve had plenty of practice; the Main Street home is the eighth one they’ve occupied as home managers.

“We live very lean,” he says. “We’re smart packers. Probably the first two times we moved, yeah, talk about stressful. Everybody that comes into the program says, ‘You’re right, the first two times are murder.’ ”

Laura Fisher, an interior designer, decorates the homes they live in. Jim Fisher works as a construction liaison for a contractor in Newport Beach, Calif. They have six children, ages 10 to 21.

Last year, the Fishers lived on the water in a 5,000-square-foot Huntington Harbour home listed at $4.25 million. They paid Showhomes $2,800 a month, less than one-third of some other rentals in the area.

Touring the Main Street house, you’d never know a family resides there. Some of the children live with their other parents, too, as part of joint custody arrangements, and they come and go. But they have been programmed to pick up after themselves, Jim Fisher says, and realize they could all have to make an exit in as little as 20 minutes if an agent wants to stop by with a prospective buyer.

Jim Fisher, home alone one day, was asked if the children resent having to be so tidy and how they like all the moving.

“They go through cycles,” he says. “For the most part, they love going into the new homes. They love the excitement of ‘OK, what does this one have?’ ”

(No matter where they move, the school-age children continue to attend their schools in Fountain Valley and Huntington Beach.)

Like other home managers, the Fishers will run across problems with newly constructed homes and get them fixed. In one house, an exploding fire sprinkler would have done thousands of dollars in water damage had they not discovered it.

Obviously, the lifestyle isn’t for everyone. For one thing, smoking or having pets won’t cut it. A home manager has to have “an inventory of fine furniture and accessories,” according to the Showhomes Web site. And then there’s that part about keeping it all spotless.

“I have friends who’ll come over and go, ‘I can do it,’ ” Jim Fisher says. “And then I have other friends who say, ‘No way.’ ”

When will the Fishers buy a home themselves? “We talk about that all the time,” he says. “Right now is a good opportunity to buy, but we also see there’s another 10 percent swing there.”