Redfin’s Lessons Learned From Residential Data Mining
SFGate has a good article on the data mining benefits of Redfin. They found “while there’s a lot of conventional wisdom - “voodoo,” Kelman calls it - about the best way to sell a home, it’s not necessarily backed up with numbers. So the company’s computer scientists started dissecting real estate sales, then released the first seven conclusions from its study, which included a review of existing research and fresh number crunching.”
Here are seven tips that they have found on listing residential properties:
Redfin’s 7 sales tactics
Don’t shoot too high: Homes priced right to begin with often to sell for more than those that have to come down from an unrealistic initial price.
Price for the Web: Prices just over a certain threshold, such as $350,000, will be excluded from Web searches capped at that amount, cutting potential views by as much as 7 percent.
List on Friday: A study showed listings appearing on Friday get an average of 7.7 percent more visitors in their first week than those hitting the market on Thursday, which is the worst day. “People apparently come to work on Friday morning looking for brand-new properties to tour over the weekend.”
Stay engaged: Studies show engaged sellers tend to sell their homes faster and for more money than typical sellers.
Market online: Post listings to sites that do not get automatic feeds from multiple listing services. A study showed each Craigslist posting, for instance, generates 11.9 visits to a listing’s Redfin page.
Don’t move: A study found sellers of vacant homes are 9.5 percent more likely to cut their prices than occupied homes.
Wait until nearby foreclosures are off the market: A study found a foreclosure costs neighboring sellers an average of $5,000.
