Just three little words in the outline of a house listing can signal a steep discount value tens of 1000’s of dollars.
For-sale listings with the phrase “priced to sell” include a median discount of 8.5%, in response to an evaluation from Realtor.com released Wednesday. That translates to a discount of about $38,000 from the median price of a house.
“We’ve found that certain ‘value’-based words utilized in listing descriptions are correlated with lower listing prices — and will be used to assist homebuyers find true bargain properties,” wrote Ralph McLaughlin, the positioning’s senior economist, within the report.
The phrase “priced to sell” is real estate jargon to point the home is (or must be) a superb deal. In some cases, it may very well be code for “this place is a fixer-upper and wishes some TLC.”
Overall, the evaluation found that this sort of value-based wording — which also includes “bargain,” “under valued” and similar key phrases — translated into statistically meaningful discounts on home prices in 38 out of the most important 100 metro areas.
On condition that mortgage rates are well above 6%, knocking such a big chunk off the house price could provide welcome reprieve for some buyers.
Where ‘priced to sell’ homes have the most important discounts
Regional aspects are actually at play. The discounts on priced-to-sell houses identified by Realtor.com ranged from 3.2% to 23.1%.
The most important discounts related to the priced-to-sell phrasing were normally in cities across the South and Midwest (though some Southern areas — notably in Florida — actually had a number of the smallest discounts).
Charleston, South Carolina
On the flip side, the Orlando area had the smallest discount of the metros included within the evaluation. Still, searching for “priced to sell” in an inventory there could prevent 3.2%, or about $13,500 off the standard home.
One caveat that McLaughin mentioned is that in case you’re trying to find a house in an area that’s inundated with “priced to sell” listings, then you definitely won’t be getting much of a reduction. The very best discounts are in areas where the phrase doesn’t appear in every other listing simply as a marketing gimmick. In that case, it just about becomes meaningless.
“To place it more simply, if quite a lot of listings were priced to sell,” he wrote, “then buyers won’t expect a reduction or won’t give you the option to tease out whether those listings are literally priced to sell.”
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