ZipRealty Introduces ”Offer Evaluator” and ”Seller Dashboard” Features for Buyers and Sellers
Buyers Can Compare Offers against Neighborhood Comps, While Sellers Can View All Activity on their Listed Home:
National residential real estate brokerage ZipRealty (www.ziprealty.com) today introduced two new online tools that provide home buyers and sellers with better insight into their local micro markets. ZipRealty’s “Offer Evaluator” tool shows how much homes are actually selling for relative to their asking prices, allowing buyers to be more strategic with their offers and sellers to gauge their listing prices, while the new “Seller Dashboard” helps keep ZipRealty seller clients informed about their home’s listing activity online 24 hours a day.
Offer Evaluator
ZipRealty’s “Offer Evaluator” provides buyers an opportunity to see how an offer they are considering making stacks up against offers that were actually accepted in their local areas. To see what percent of the list price homes are selling for, users simply type in the amount of the offer they are considering making on the property. The “Offer Evaluator” tool then shows what percentage of list price the homes in that area sold for. For example, if a $500,000 home is in a neighborhood where homes are typically selling for 95 percent of the asking price, a buyer can decide to make an offer for $25,000 under the asking price.
“Many buyers think bad housing news means they can buy a home at a really discounted price,” Patrick Lashinsky, ZipRealty CEO and President said. “Our Offer Evaluator provides a bit of a reality check, because in most of our markets, homes are selling for close to the list price, up to a 5 percent discount. We are not seeing a majority of sellers accepting offers at 20-25 percent below the list price.”
Sellers can also use this information to more accurately price their home versus what they want the eventual sales price to be, as this tool provides a realistic picture of the activity taking place in a particular micro market.
Seller Dashboard
The new “Seller Dashboard” feature provides sellers with a range of detailed information about their ZipRealty listing previously only available if sent by their agent, making it quick and easy to adjust their sales strategy. For example, with the new tool, ZipRealty sellers can see the number of:
— Page views received on the “Home Details” page for their
listed home — Property showings that potential buyers have requested for
their home– Buyers who have added their home to their “My Homes” list
– Buyers who have viewed a particular home relative to how many
have viewed other homes in the last 30 days. A scale of one to
10 is used, with 10 indicating the highest level of interest
Offline activity, such as reviews from buyers’ agents and clients, are scheduled to be added to ZipRealty’s dashboard in the near future.
“Industry surveys show that many sellers feel that once they hire an agent to sell their house, they don’t receive enough follow-up from the agent,” Lashinsky said. “We provide our sellers information on their schedule–either by quick response from their ZipRealty agent or through online tools available and updated 24 hours a day.”
