Set your Tivos
Redfin on the Today Show tomorrow.
Glenn Kelmann will be on with Al Roker Friday morning at 7:40am sharp.
He’ll be giving a forecast on the housing market and sharing some tips to help move a house in slow market. The angle? They’ve developed these tips according to “scientific analysis” of market conditions. The full report is available at www.redfin.com/scientist and they claim it to be “the first to combine academic research, listing data from broker databases, and traffic patterns from a real estate website.”
For those of you who just can’t wait, here are Redfin’s seven tips to selling a home (from their press release):
- Don’t overprice your property: According to a 2002 academic study of 3,490 California listings, homes without a price reduction sold for 97 percent of initial list price, whereas homes with a price reduction sold for 88 percent of initial list price.
- Set your price to show up in web searches: A September 2007 Redfin study analyzed how online search filters affect traffic to a listing. Because real estate sites filter on price in $25,000 or $50,000 increments, listings priced at or below these thresholds — $250,000 rather than $251,000, or $325,000 rather than $326,000 — get as much as 7.1 percent more online visits.
- Debut on Friday: A December 2007 Redfin analysis of its online traffic for 119,079 listings across seven markets found that listings that debut on Friday get on average 7.7 percent more visitors in their first seven days than those that debut on the worst day, Thursday.
- Stay engaged with your agent: According to several academic studies, motivated, active sellers are able to sell their property as much as 30 percent faster.
- Market the property online: Promoting a listing on websites beyond the local Multiple Listing Service can drive a significant number of new online visits to a property. A December 2007 analysis of 121 Redfin listings found that promoting the listings on craigslist resulted in an average of 6.8 online visits to the property for each craigslist promotion.
- When selling your home, stay put: The study of 3,490 California listings, cited earlier, found that vacant homes were 9.5 percent more likely to undergo a price reduction.
- Wait to list your property until neighboring foreclosures are off the market: According to a November 2007 report from the Center for Responsible Lending, a foreclosure costs neighboring homeowners an average of $5,000 when listing their property.
Hardly earth shattering revelations, but Redfin once again demonstrates their true mastery of the PR game. Kudos for that.
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6 Comment(s)
4 Trackback(s)
- From Joel is right-on when he says that Redfin has… « 4realz.net | Dec 14, 2007
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Jay Thompson | Dec 14, 2007 | Reply
“Hardly earth shattering revelations”
Hardly. But you do have to hand it to Kellman and his PR machine.
Sol from Forsalebyweb | Dec 14, 2007 | Reply
Glenn Kelman deserves credit for everything he does. We know he owns a most gas efficient PR machine. My company did a more comprehensive study on the effect of pricing and marketing even before the internet boom of 2000. Pricing for web searches became empirical evidence in the past several years.
Our research didn’t involve scientists and number crunchers. Instead we invited 250 real estate investors that buy and sell properties for a living to participate in market testing and provide feedback on elements that are most responsible for generating “offers” which later led to the release of what became known as “nodiscount process” where we took data to create a system of determining house values.
We also developed something called “reverse offers” where buyers invite multiple sellers/realtors to reverse bid the amount they are willing to discount below the list price. Example is when a buyer is interestd in five properties but unsure about which to buy. The buyer can invite all sellers to bid down the list price. The one that discounts the most gets first shot.
Now, when you combine these facts with seller pricing to display on searches, all are about pricing to stick out. Buyers and sellers can choose to be a trend setter ( nodiscount ) who get properties sold or those who chase/go against the market ( discounting ).
Not to come off as an informercial, but in today’s market where consumers can research values in seconds and AVM sites are in abundance it’s just a matter of time when transparency will enable consumers to name their house values in real-time.
Hope this helps.
Fizber | Dec 14, 2007 | Reply
I liked the article. Glenn Kelman is an outstanding person in todays real estate industry. I say this because he isn’t afraid to share the information with the community regardless this community includes his direct competitors…
retrove.com | Dec 14, 2007 | Reply
Sure it’s hardly earth shattering information… but look at MLS listings to see how many agents are ignoring #2.
I would also venture to say that most agents are not aware of #1 as I think I once heard from a MLS tech. that the heaviest day for data entry into the MLS tends to be Mon / Tues - appointments carried over from the weekend.
Love him or hate him it’s valuable information (and lesson in marketing) because he / rf puts small but detailed informatoion in the public eye he will get pr for something that “real” real estate professionals already know.
The big take-away is that is it’s important to publicly share your knowledge not matter how trivial it may seem to “you” as a professional. Clients look towards professionals for these little nuggets of information, which can make a huge difference. This is why blogging is so powerful for agents as you can pubicly share your knowledge.
As an example, what is the difference between a HR Block tax preparer or a $200 an hour CPA – the CPA takes the time to learn, apply and share these little known tax codes with his clients that can make a big difference. When the clients save big they remember the CPA and are happy they paid the $200 an hr., then he gets more referrals.
I’m sure a local agent in a big market could have and probably still could get this same press on their local news channel with this same message… now who will try?
Chris Dowell | Dec 16, 2007 | Reply
Great post! I have debated with my business partner these facts. It is kinda nice to see it in print and supporting my side. All are valuable points.
Thomas Johnson | Dec 18, 2007 | Reply
Headline: Real Estate yards signs indicate house is for sale.
After extensive scientific study, Thomas Johnson of http://www.ERAHouston.com has developed the quantitative science of real estate marketing. “We have determined that 97.623% of people who see a real estate sign in the yard understand that it is for sale.” Therefore, we highly recommend that a yard sign be used when a house is for sale.
Something like that, Joel?