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Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Psychology Of MLS Listings

As I wrote about before, I wanted to get this property listed in the MLS using the key words identified in Freakonomics that correlate to a higher sales price. Here is the text of my MLS listing:

YOU MUST SEE THIS NEWLY REMODELED HOME... THIS 3 BEDROOM 2 BATH HOME BOASTS NEW PAINT AND CARPET THROUGHOUT.. NEW OAK KITCHEN CABINETS.. NEW COUNTERTOPS.. NEW RANGE/OVEN.. NEW DISHWASHER.. NEW GARBAGE DISPOSAL.. NEW SINKS.. NEW BATHROOM VANITIES.. GREAT FOR ENTERTAINING FRIENDS AND FAMILY.. THIS HOME IS READY TO MOVE INTO AND THE SELLER CAN CLOSE AS FAST AS YOU CAN...

One of the keywords was maple. That didn't apply to my property, but oak did, so I had my agent substitute that. Also, move-in-ready was a keyword and that was included in a slightly modified form. New, another keyword, was inserted all over the place :-)

So how did the psychology experiment go? Well, it's hard to tell because Phoenix is such a seller's market right now. I received a total of four offers in four days: two were at full price, one was more than list price, and one was under list price with the caveat they would go over list price by a certain amount. All in all, good bids! But it's hard to tell if the wording caused them or market conditions did. I do know I'll keep using these words in future listings, just in case!

5 comments:

Steve said...

But it's hard to tell if the wording caused them or market conditions did. I do know I'll keep using these words in future listings, just in case!

It sure as heck didn't hurt! :-)

To be honest, I think the wording was a supporting factor, and would have definately helped in a slower market. Good job!

Anonymous said...

Is there a reason your site doesn't have an RSS feed?
I have instructions for adding an RSS feed to your Blogger site here:

http://www.jamescollins.net/index.cfm?fuseaction=blogging

misteropus said...

Shaun, I am starting to think we can lure you over to the darkside (marketing).

Shaun said...

Anonymous - I do have a site feed and have for a long time. The URL is http://shaunsre.blogspot.com/atom.xml. I just don't have a link to it anywhere. If you use the Firefox browser, you will see a blue ribbon in the bar at the bottom of the window when you visit the blog. Click on that to subscribe to the feed. If you are using Internet Explorer, you have my condolences. :-)

Misteropus - Never. I'll never turn to the Dark Side. You've failed, your highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me.

Shaun said...

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_feed for a general definition.

In practice, site feeds allow programs to present the articles on the site in an easy to read format or to aggregate articles from different web sites into one page. For example, in Firefox, I have a bookmark to the Atom feed of my blog. In my Bookmarks menu, one entry is "Shaun's Real Estate Adventures". When I mouse to that, the menu item expands to a submenu that shows the titles of the last 7 entries. I can go to the one I want. In Firefox, these are called Live Bookmarks, meaning they automatically update. If I post another article, the title will automatically show up as the topmost link in the submenu.

There are many different feed reader programs with different bells and whistles. I just stick with the built-in functionality of Firefox rather than have a separate program.

By the way, bginvestor, your blog is already set up to use a site feed. That's how I read it :-)

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