Gone are the days of gimmick pricing. You know the kind that ends in all 8’s or all 7’s. Or the discount pricing that ends in 999 because that 1 cent or 1 dollar is going to make your property fly off the shelves with multiple offers above list price.
What Zillow has done really well is capture the consumer's eyeballs. So when people are looking to buy a home or even attend an open house, Zillow is the first place they stop. When clients are interviewing real estate professionals to get a valuation for their home, most check Zillow first to see if the agent sitting in front of them can do better than their Zestimate.
So, in all transparency, we use Zillow to our clients' advantage. Not that I’d ever agree that the AI-generated, algorithmic-centric property valuation is accurate. I mean, a few years ago, Zillow lost hundreds of millions of dollars through its iBuyer program due to faulty valuations.
Here’s what most people don’t realize, though.
When searching on the Zillow platform, they have pricing cutoffs that make a difference, or should make a difference on how you price your property for sale. It’s called pricing on the bubble. Let me explain.
Zillow sorts homes into price brackets.
When you price just below a cutoff, your home disappears from searches for homes priced above that bubble. If you price your home at $999,999, then anyone looking for the perfect $1M home won’t see yours. That’s right, it won’t show up in the search. And that’s such a shame because your $1M home could be so much better than one priced at $1.25M and a bargain at that.
After seeing this happen repeatedly in the Las Vegas market, you should think again before getting creative with your pricing. We have to price the way consumers buy. We have to be strategic. Especially in today’s climate, with days-on-market climbing. There is no time to be cute or play with how we position your home on the market.
