In a study done by Zillow, Home Features that Sell, 4.6 million home sales across the country were analyzed in 2017 and 2018 for sales price and number of days listed on Zillow. The analysis stated that the for-sale listings mentioning certain home features sold for more and were on the market less time than those homes that did not list these certain features.
What are these features you ask? Well having luxurious items such as a steam oven or shower, heated floors, or a wine cellar can boost your home sales price up to 34 percent more. The Director of Economic Research at Zillow, Skylar Olsen, notes that “If you have these features, flaunt them.”
These types of luxurious features that are mentioned in property listings are appealing to first-home buyers and sell for more than expected. This type of trend seems to reflect the type of lifestyle that a millennial homeowner or a young family are trying to live by or achieve, according to Zillow.
Another luxurious home feature that bumped up pricing on a home and was included on the listing was an outdoor kitchen. A home with this feature sold for 24.5 percent more than a listing of a home that did not. Outdoor dining goes well with this feature, a pergola. When mentioned in a listing, the home sold 11 days faster and for 7.2 percent more money. Other items that gave homes a boost in prices and less days on the market are waterfall countertops, open shelving, exposed brick, and subway tile.
Zillow does point out that they are not “saying you should build or add these things to your home just to help it sell. However, listings that mention these features do sell for more—sometimes a lot more.”
Or does this sound like these companies are trying to offer a solution that is looking for a problem? If someone had a problem at a closing it could have either been a bad real estate agent or an escrow agent. Typically it is the buyers that pick the escrow, but in today’s market it seems to be this responsibility has fallen on the listing agent, whose primary job is first and foremost a marketing one. The listing agent does not directly sell your house, but they should be the reason your house sells. Thus being knowledgeable in escrow is not a primary responsibility for them.
comes to payoffs on the seller’s mortgage and getting new loan documents on the buyer’s loan. When it comes to real estate transactions, electronic signatures are enforceable, however certain documents (e.g. mortgages and deeds) will require original signatures for recordation. Borrowers and lenders continue to require originally executed notes to maximize their comfort level that there is only one negotiable instrument.
Artificial intelligence isn’t just the foundation of new startups, it’s being implemented into pre-existing real-estate tools that have been transforming the market for years. ATTOM data’s AVM is a tool which analyzes previous property purchases. The system breaks down property characteristics, compiles them and assigns values, and uses them to set a market value scale. This same process can be applied to a buyer. Artificial intelligence makes it possible to scrutinize personal data and, consequently, base property value on the desired home qualities, income, and personality traits of buyers, not just the characteristics of properties. Even services, like Zillow, will need to adapt greater AI capability. The consumer today shapes their life according to recommendations. Video streaming and food services use AI to suggest future choices to people based on prior activity. It’s a fundamental tenant of psychology that most people desire to be instructed and managed. This same concept applies to how AI is incorporated. Real estate web services, with the help of AI, will be presenting recommendations, to the consumers, based on extrapolated data trails. Has this individual posted about having children? Add a spare bedroom qualifier to their home criteria. Do they like barbeque? Advertise a property in close proximity to something finger-lickin’ good. Do they like reading? Propose a property with abundant natural light.
person, according to a Nielsen Company audience report, spends 10 hours a day consuming media online. That amounts to 3,650 hours, and 41.6% of the average person’s year spent online. This activity produces an incomprehensible mass of data trail to be scrutinized and expressed in your next home purchase. How AI will ultimately transform the real estate business is unknown. Who knows, perhaps one-day artificial intelligence will purchase property for itself. All one can be utterly sure of is that the phrase, “I’ll be back,” will not be vocalized because AI isn’t terminating anytime soon.