If you’re having trouble settling on a realistic price with sellers before their listing goes online, ask them to consider this: two popular real estate websites have now found that a property’s first week online can make or break the sale.
Online brokerage redfin.com, currently 15th on the Hitwise list of US real estate websites, was the first to come out with this finding, noting that more than half of all listings activated in 2009 failed to sell by August 2010.“The week that a listing goes on the market, we estimate that it gets nearly four times more visits on real estate websites than it does a month later, which is the earliest that most sellers will consider a price reduction,” redfin.com writes.
redfin.com’s statistics on listing views show a steady decline after the first week, with small spikes in traffic seen after 30 and 60 days, when bargain hunters start scouring the website.
New Zealand market leader realestate.co.nz has a similar story to tell. Its statistics show that a quarter of listing views during a property’s first two months online take place in the first seven days. realestate.co.nz argues that this should prompt agents to include a strong lead photo, plenty of good back-up photos, great listing copy, and a realistic price in the first version of their listing.
“Get these four essentials right and you are ensuring that your property has the greatest chance of grabbing that viewing audience. Get it wrong or decide to change some details after a week and you could already have missed the boat,” realestate.co.nz says.