Three magic words in a real estate listing can garner five figure discounts for buyers, according to experts.
A listing which includes the words ‘priced to sell’ – or other similar phrases like ‘bargain,’ ‘under valued,’ or ‘under priced’ – come with an average of 8.5 percent discounts off their asking prices.
Those savings translate to around $38,000 off the median-priced home in the US, according to the report by Realtor.com.
‘Certain “value”-based words used in listing descriptions are correlated with lower listing prices and can be used to help homebuyers find true bargain properties,’ Ralph McLaughlin, senior economist at Realtor.com, said in the report.
Homebuyers in the South and Midwest can expect the biggest discounts when a property has ‘priced to sell’ in the listing.
The graphic below lists the top ten – headed by Little Rock in Arkansas. Further down there is more detail on the ten metros.
Certain phrases in a real estate listing can translate to large discounts off the asking price
It is no surprise that a listing promising money off would have a discount, of course.
But there is a quirk in the findings.
Certain housing markets tend to use the phrases more than others, varying widely from state to state.
In an area with fewer ‘priced to sell’ listings, each discount is noticeably bigger than a market with more.
‘Why would fewer listings that are “priced to sell” be correlated with larger discounts?,’ McLaughlin explained.
‘We can’t say definitively why there’s a correlation, but it likely has to do with what buyers are used to in a particular market.’
For example, the term ‘priced to sell’ is used on an average of 6.7 percent of properties in Sarasota, Florida – but only 1.9 percent of properties in Long Island, New York.
Areas with the smallest ‘priced-to-sell’ discounts were almost exclusively in Florida, where the words featured most in listings.
Realtor.com data revealed where the Top 10 places where the savings can be the biggest:
Little Rock, Arkansas
‘Priced-to-sell’ discount: 23 percent
Median savings: $57,494
St. Louis, Missouri
‘Priced-to-sell’ discount: 18.7 percent
Median savings: $49,476
Charleston, South Carolina
‘Priced-to-sell’ discount: 15.9 percent
Median savings: $79,558
Memphis, Tennessee
‘Priced-to-sell’ discount: 14.5 percent
Median savings:$43,262
Kenosha, Wisconsin
‘Priced-to-sell’ discount: 12.6 percent
Median savings: $50,464
Nassau County, New York
‘Priced-to-sell’ discount: 12.5 percent
Median savings: $94,662
Cambridge, Massachusetts
‘Priced-to-sell’ discount: 11.5 percent
Median savings: $89,851
Tulsa, Oklahoma
‘Priced-to-sell’ discount: 11.4 percent
Median savings: $32,801
El Paso, Texas
‘Priced-to-sell’ discount: 11.2 percent
Median savings: $31,295
Wichita, Kansas
‘Priced-to-sell’ discount: 10.9 percent
Median savings: $28,655
