If everything else in the neighborhood is getting seen five times a week and yours only twice a week, that is not necessarily a good thing. In this type of scenario, the seller will often come to the agent and say, “I do not think we are priced competitively enough to sell in this neighborhood.” So it flips the script in the usual situation where the agent is trying to get the seller to lower
the price.

Data like this tells a powerful story. According to Paul Lazarre, CEO and founder of LeapRE, the company’s new Pricing Coach Module can help agents figure out the most accurate price a property should be listed for.

“A challenge with pricing is that many people feel that agents have an interest in selling their properties quickly,” Lazarre says. “It was quoted in ‘Freakanomics’ that when agents sell their own homes, they often keep them on the market longer. There’s a lack of trust there initially, and secondly, the seller is often emotionally attached, and might think the best price to sell it for is higher than what the market says.”

LeapRe collects data surrounding a real estate transaction – listing information, activity of properties surrounding the agent’s listing, where active and closed listings are located nearby, the neighborhood absorption rate, the number of showings and Web traffic – to keep agents informed while they are working with
their clients.

Then, the Pricing Coach Module creates visualizations of the data to help the average home seller understand what the data means. This helps determine whether that property is getting the adequate amount of response for how hot its market is. Agents can see the report right up until it’s generated to show clients and allow for a thorough review.

“Market reaction is a powerful indication of whether or not the property is going to succeed at a given price point,” Lazarre says. “Feedback from people who attend showings is a great indicator of whether or not pricing for a property should be lowered, and the Pricing Coach tells the story visually to the seller, which has more of an impact on people.”

Besides the measure of Web hits, foot traffic and feedback are important, too. The tool asks for feedback from buyers and the buyers’ agents after each showing, and the listing agent can use this information to improve parts of the home or features that may have received negative feedback.

The Pricing Coach Module can also generate a pre-listing report, where the agent can figure out what could happen if the client’s home went on the market listed at certain prices. Getting the price right when the property hits the market is imperative – if it’s too high, it will exclude buyers.

But how does LeapRE’s Pricing Coach Module give agents an edge they wouldn’t have just using traditional pricing methods and CMAs? One of the reasons the company created this tool is because of a problem many agents were facing: they have a large number of listings that often can’t sell because of their clients’ unreasonable expectations. As a result, some agents would get fired after about a year because sellers felt they were not doing a good job, when in reality, the issue was often the pricing of the home. Developed from real-world experience, LeapRE wanted to create a tool that could quickly gather market data based on filters agents controlled, create visual reports and send it directly to clients.

Approximately 500 agents in the Chicagoland area have the Pricing Coach Module. Mary Wallace, an agent with Coldwell Banker’s Oak Lawn office, says the tool has greatly helped her business.

“These comprehensive reports show that we are significantly above average, and I not only sell the home, but for the highest price possible,” she says. “The Pricing Coach offers unparalleled communication and data to keep our sellers on track. These reports show the seller that I track their home’s online activity, show them when their newspaper ads were published and provide detailed feedback from their showings – something so few agents do these days.”