Success leaves clues. – Anthony Robbins
How are buyers reacting to your home? Is the home positioned to be amongst the next five that sell?
We track key metrics to gauge how buyers are responding and we recommend making adjustments quickly where necessary. We measure how many people view your home online and how many take the virtual tour. We monitor the number of phone calls that your home generates. We track showings and offers. Over the course of listing and selling thousands of homes, we have noticed patterns in the data that lead to successful outcomes.
Number of Showings
How many people have been inside your home over the first three weeks? How many second showings have there been? How many offers? According to national statistics, eight qualified buyers through a property should produce one offer. The showings-per-week ratio, showings-to-offers ratio, and second-showings ratio are vital indicators.
The initial week on the market should prompt several showings in most market segments. Thereafter we expect 3-5 showings per week. If we have 8-12 showings within the first three weeks, then we should be on the right track. We cannot rely on the accuracy of feedback from showing agents.
A lack of showings means we are negotiating with the marketplace on pricing, not a buyer yet. If there are many showings without an offer, then we look again at the condition of the home or other factors.
Days on the Market
In a market trending downward, Days on Market are key. The longer a home sits on the market, the lower the price you will eventually receive. As the months go by, other agents and buyers look at the number of “Days on Market” and wonder what is wrong with the home. A high number of days on the market can result in very lowball offers, since buyers may think that a seller is desperate after waiting such a long time.
Homes that stay on the market for prolonged periods become yesterday’s news. It takes a dramatic price reduction to catch anyone’s attention for a stale listing. Meanwhile, market values continue to fall and you will eventually need a larger price reduction in order to catch up to market values.
In a declining market….time equals money. The longer you wait to price the home competitively, the lower the eventual sales price. Waiting months to make price adjustments can costs you thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. How can we get ahead of the market?
Sit or Sell
Positioning your home to sell for maximum value in today’s market may mean reducing the asking price. Whenever we expose your home to the marketplace, the market reacts. This current market is not as generous to our sellers as it has been in past markets. The current market is still in a declining. In today’s world, our first showings are on the Internet. If the buyer comes to your home, that is our second showing. Once you pick your price, one of three things will happen: (#1) we have some second showings in the first 30 days and receive a good offer; (#2) we have some second showings but the no offers (buyers like the home but not the price); or (#3) we do not have any second showings – which means buyers are completely rejecting the home at this price. If you want to sell your home, it is imperative that you price the home to sell rather than sit on the market like the competition.
Don’t Sell the Competition
Homes that are viewed as overpriced generate few showings and no offers. Overpriced listings make other listings seem like relative bargains. Realtors will use overpriced homes as decoys to sell other homes. Buyers may not bother to look, let alone make an offer on an overpriced home because there are so many other attractive options that seem to have a higher probability of success. Also, buyers may never see over-priced homes online because their search criteria returns so many results in a lower price range that they never look in the next higher price range. How can we become the “must see” home in the segment that compels buyers to take action?
Reposition Rapidly
We want to be ahead of this market, not behind the curve. Pricing is a process. Did you know that 56% of the homes in the Tampa MLS have had price reductions in 2010 and 60% fail to sell within the listing period? We track and analyze the data to recommend changes where necessary. If no changes are made, there will be no change in results.
Leverage Technology
In today’s climate, this real-time information provided by showings, clicks and calls allows us to adjust pricing and marketing on the fly. If we change pricing or marketing at 9:00 am, notify the world by 10:00 am, then we can watch the buyer click-through rate, number of phone calls and showing requests spike by lunchtime. By the next day, we should know if the spike was an anomaly or a harbinger.
The Premium Value Home Selling System™ manages the key variables that influence the final selling price. Contact Annette, Doug or Dale Bohannon at Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate in Tampa, Florida to sell for top dollar.
