Showings and Contracts; Is one Dependent on the Other?

Getting traffic into your Athens, GA home for sale. That is the end all. At least they tell me it is the end all. Okay, okay, I know I am a Gen X'r and a Contrarian, but while I do agree we need showings, I still hold fast to the concept that the technology we have today does weed out and therefore reduce physical showings. This is okay. I mean, you don't want 47 people to walk through your house creating foot patterns in the carpet and also requiring you to possibly have to clean it each and every time there is a showing lined up when a handful of showings can just as well do the trick thereby creating a sought after Contract.

Examining showings on a few of the home listings that I have had recently go under contract or sell, this is my finding;

		Showings	Days on
Location		90 Days	Market
Sunset Drive		18	103
Brookstone Drive		6	137
Sterling Drive		48	269
Averages		24	169

So a few questions arise.

1. Do the number of physical showings (i.e. walking potential buyers through the front door) cause the house to have a higher probability to be sold as compared to the next home?
2. Does location weigh into whether or not a particular house is sold more quickly than another?
3. Does price factor more heavily than other variables in getting a house sold? Does price if it is too high also possibly reduce the number of showings as well as create a prohibitive environment reducing our opportunities for contracts of sale?

The answer to these questions are "no, yes," and "definitely yes."

What is almost humorous to me, forgive me if I make myself chuckle in my analytical geekness, is the fact that I did not include the sales price of any of these homes. What you might find interesting is that the home with the most showings was the least in price of the three sales. It's also quite surprising that it had the longest days on market. Why? It missed on location, the neighborhood had too much competitive inventory on the market for sale, and was vacant which hurt it compared to other homes which were furnished or staged.

The property with the least showings in Brookstone sold for 98 percent of list price, and sold at a relatively low number of days on the market. Why was this the case? It had great location for the buyer. There was also fewer comparable properties on the market for sale in this subdivision. The Sunset Drive property was the most expensive of these listings and sold in the fewest number of days on the market. This was a result of location, location, and location.

In the end, none of these sold as a result of a great number of showings where real estate professionals dragged people through these homes. None of them even had, are you sitting down, a single "Open House." They sold because of hundreds and hundreds of views online, they were priced right, and they had good location.

I know these are only three sales in my example, but I could throw you another that sold in 44 days on the market, was priced at $239,900, and had but 2 showings. Again, it sold due to location and price for the area.

Keep this in mind if you are in the process of selling your home or are thinking about it. Through keeping the "masses" off your carpet, hardwoods, and rugs, you will have less to have professionally cleaned for your buyer when it does go under contract!

"I need more Showings for my House to Sell!!"

A common concern for most sellers today is the "lack of showings." I heard from one agent that a new Seller client actually emailed her the other day with the subject line, "House on market 24 hours and no showings." The email went on to talk about how "worried" she was that her home had been in the MLS for a day and there was no interest even to see it yet.

How do we get traffic? Do Open Houses help get your home shown more? Do advertisements in the Real Estate Book of Athens get your home more previews and traffic? Should you care? Is the idea we have been conditioned to that tells us we need foot traffic in our homes for sale an outdated, old school, way of looking at home selling in 2009?

Looking over 20 current listings which are active, under contract, or just sold I have tried to see if the number of showings mean anything toward finding that right buyer. In the end, I feel that through the technology of Virtual Tours and putting multiple High Resolution photos of a home for sale online, that this in itself will inherently reduce the amount of foot traffic. So let's take a look at some listings to see if physical showings necessarily create a buyer.

MLS	DOM	Price Range		Showings	Status
988488	63	$200k-$250k		2	Sold
910245	76	$150k-$175k		28	UC
907301	262	$100k-$110k		48	UC
909612	112	$125k-$150k		2	UC

UC (Under Contract)

None of these listings has had an Open House. None. Why you might ask? It is a little known secret in real estate circles that Realtors have Open Houses to find Buyers. Yep, but not necessarily for the listing they are "using" to hold the open house, but for "any listing." This is also why they spend money on the Real Estate Book and other media. To find buyers. Not to sell a particular listing, but to "get the phone ringing."

Yet on average it appears that Days on Market for my listings before going under contract (just using this sample group) is 127 days. Not bad when the average Days on Market is 205 days in Athens over the past year.

What begets a buyer offer? Good exposure and the right price.

Exposure is the easy part if your agent can handle Web 2.0. Listing #988488 above was actually "sold" to the buyer "before they had ever set foot in it." That's right. The Virtual Tour sold it to them. The traditional "staid" buyer's agent didn't know what to do with herself. She called me "concerned" and bewildered all at the same time because her clients had never "seen" the house. Well they had. About 2 dozen times online via the Web.

The hard part is price. How to get price right. This is something that always works, but sellers either are not in a position to bend or won't. It is a tough market. One of these listings under contract currently is actually selling for what the current owner paid for it in 2003. This is not the situation with everyone, but hopefully with get you to think.

If you want a Current Market Analysis to see what the value of your home is please contact me. I am good at what I do and I would love to be of service.