Pricing is a topic I beat to death because it’s so important. But, can the difference of $1.00 really make a difference in a big ticket item like real estate? YES!
In the retail world, we love to see things priced at $29.99. Psychologically, it just feels better than $30. It clearly makes a difference in our buying patterns because retailers love to continue to use this strategy.
Unfortunately, agents have gotten into the habit of utilizing this type of psychological pricing on homes. For example, you may see a home priced at $599,999 rather than $600,000. But, this is a critical error when trying to maximize buyer and agent traffic to a listing.
Clearly, a home is not an impulse purchase so very little is gained by the $1 difference in the price. No one is fooled for long into thinking that home is cheaper when priced at $599,999. But more importantly, it will actually hamper the times that the home will come up in a search.
Whether a buyer is doing a search online through some on the consumer search engines (Realtor.com, Trulia, or Zillow) or their Realtor’s MLS driven search engine (IDX), they will usually search in $25,000 or $50,000 increments. The same is true for an agent doing a search for a buyer on the MLS. For example, I might search for homes between $550,000 to $600,000, or from $600,000 to $650,000.
Notice, if a home is priced at $599,999, it will not even come up in the search from $600,000 to $650,000. This is a common mistake made and one that is easily remedied. Just that small change can make a significant difference is the number of times a home is seen by both agents and buyers. And this process is about maximizing traffic to your home.
This may be the only place I tell you to raise your price…go ahead… raise your price by $1.00!
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I call those hard numbers…..$325,000, $350,000 $375,000, $400,000 and so on. You are right on with the visability. If the searches ended at $599,999, then it would be smart to price it that way. We know they don’t though.