More and more often these days I walk into a house and the first impression is.....

OMG! Phew! What is that awful smell?!

Now, to be fair, most of these homes are vacant. (Over 3/4 of the homes I show these days are vacant!) And, a closed up vacant house will always start to smell, over time.

Some of the smells I regularly encounter:

• Mildew
• Mold
• Pet urine
• Cigarette smoke
• Dead, rotting animals

There are plenty of others, many of them not easily identified.

If you're a homeowner, selling a vacant home, either you or your agent should be checking from time to time to see if the home has acquired any unfortunate odors.

Keep the air conditioning running! I know you're not living there and hate paying the bills, but, believe me, what you'll net in a better offer is more than you'll lose on paying those bills.

If there are some stubborn odors, take steps to remedy them. Get rid of drapes, have carpets professionally cleaned, consider getting an air purifier.

By the way, adding really smelly air fresheners is not the same as taking care of the problem!

Remember, the sense of smell is powerful and has a major influence on our emotions. No one falls in love with a stinky house! Even if they still buy it, the price went down the minute they opened the door and smelled the place!

If you're considering putting your house on the market, consider having a friend or neighbor give you an honest assessment of what they smell when they first walk in the house. This can be a delicate area so make sure they know they have your permission to be brutally honest!

And, if your agent tells you there's an odor problem that needs to be dealt with, don't waste any time in dealing with it. There's a house down the street that smells just fine and is also for sale!

I walk talking to a colleague a couple of days ago about how the lower end of the market is where all the deals are being done right now. A house under $300K has a significantly better chance of selling than anything above it does. (Of the 41 houses sold in April in Fauquier County, half were below $300K. Another 10 were between $300K and $400K.)

She said that's good, because then the people who sold those houses will move up and so on and so forth. That's how the cycle works. And, I agreed initially. But as we discussed it further it occurred to me that the cycle seems to be broken right now.

There are still quite a few first time home buyers out there, and, an increasing number of investors. Typically the houses they buy are starter homes and then the sellers of those home move up the rung to a larger home.

But almost every home I show these days is empty. And, a large number of them are bank owned or on their way there. There are no owners living in those homes to move up to the next level of home ownership. They've already left and, in most cases, it was to go back to renting.

There are some empty homes where the owners got transferred and are gone because they're buying another home in another community. But a lot of the sales of starter homes are not producing the normal "move up" buyer that we usually see.

There are reports surfacing up and down the east coast of copper thefts in empty houses. Generally these are the homes that are foreclosures or short sales, or sometimes even relocations, where the owners are long gone and the home has sat vacant for an extended period of time.

The price of copper is sky high and so opportunistic thieves are going in and taking copper pipes out of the walls, copper parts from HVAC systems and any other copper or possible copper in the house. The thieves are worried about being fast, not neat, and beyond the cost of replacing what they've stolen is the cost of repairing the other damage they've done.

If you own a home that's vacant, it would be a good idea to make arrangements with a neighbor or your real estate agent to keep an eye on the place. Lights on timers isn't a bad idea.

If you're buying a home that's been vacant for awhile, don't underestimate the importance of that final walk through. Make sure you look at everything closely and test all systems to make sure they're still in working order. If you're buying a home that's sold in "as is" condition, meaning you're stuck if the home is vandalized, think carefully about what you might need to do to protect yourself. This is a good time to have a discussion with your real estate agent. If you don't fully understand the contract provisions relating to the condition of the home, now's the time to get a fuller understanding of that information.

2008 is likely to continue to provide lots of empty homes for thieves to target. Real estate agents are going to have to start thinking about how to protect their clients, both buyers and sellers, and the properties involved in the transaction.