Vacant is supposed to be vacant, right?

What's up with vacant and then there's obviously someone living in the house?

Or kind of living in the house. We've all seen it, right? The listing says vacant / go and we go, probably even still ring the doorbell, and you open the front door and right away you think "this does not look super vacant." You cautiously round the corner and you see a flat screen tv, a mattress on the floor and a pizza box laying around. That is not super vacant.

At that point you get nervous that perhaps you have walked in on someone, you get the heebee-geebies and scoot out of there quickly.

Let's say the house is pending, listed as vacant, and you are looking at a few properties in the neighborhood to compare to a house you're about to list. We do this all the time, right?

So listing agents, if the house is vacant, let's have it be super vacant.

If a relative or doing-a-friend-a-favor friend is sleeping on a spare mattress for a couple weeks, let's change that listing from vacant to NOT-SO-VACANT, call for appt etc.

Just this week, a house was pending, I am doing my homework for a seller in the neighborhood, doing a quick view of all the vacant homes in the neighborhood (and a couple occupied) and sure enough ... flat screen tv, 2 nice guitars on stands, mattress on the floor, a suitcase. I got 5' into the house and got out of there quickly. What if that guitar-playing, temporarily-living-out-of-suitcase OCCUPANT / friend / family member had been napping or in the shower? Maybe they have a baseball bat? Maybe they have a mean dog?

Agents, if the occupancy / vacancy status changes on a listing please, do us all a favor (including the temporary occupant), and change the status in the MLS.