By Nancy Mueller • FOR WILLIAMSON A.M. • October 15, 2010

If you are neat, looking for a house to rent and have good furniture, a local home staging company might have a deal for you.

Showhomes Nashville offers discounted monthly fees to those who qualify, provided they are willing to act as live-in “home managers” who furnish the rooms, keep the place perpetually clean for showings and are willing to move out when the house sells.

Terease Baker-Belle and her daughters, Trinity Bell, 11, and Selah, 5, relax at their Showhomes Nashville rental home. Baker-Belle will “manage” the home until it is sold. SANFORD MYERS / THE TENNESSEAN

Terease Baker-Belle had never heard of such a thing until she stumbled on the company’s advertisements while searching the Internet for a house to rent in the Nashville area.

A mother of two, she was transferred to Franklin from St. Louis, Mo. Before actually buying a house, she wanted to rent for a bit while she got more familiar with Nashville’s communities.

“I had no idea this kind of thing existed,” she said.

After she and her furniture passed muster, she ended up moving into a six-bedroom house in McLemore Farms, off Goose Creek Bypass in Franklin.

Coming from a 7,000-square-foot home in St. Louis, she had plenty of furniture to fill this 5,406-square-foot house, which is for sale for $565,000.

Built in 2007, its a luxury property that has three stories, including a nanny suite, a home theater and a big, fenced yard; Baker-Belle pays $2,000 a month to live in it.

But each morning before she goes off to work, she has to make sure that the house is “show ready.”