We're Really Good, Most of the Time...

This Smoky Mountain real estate agent was very fortunate in 2012 to sell 168 (my most ever) properties during the course of the year. That's the best year that I have ever had, but not the first time that I have blessed with a great deal of success according to the Great Smoky Mountain Association of Realtors:

1998 - Number One RE/MAX Agent, Sevier County, Total Dollar Volume Sold.
1999 - Number One Agent, Great Smoky Mtn. Board of Realtors, # of Residential Units Sold.
2000 - Number One Agent, Great Smoky Mtn. Board of Realtors, Total Dollar Volume Sold.
2001 - Top Selling Team, Great Smoky Mtn. Board of Realtors, Total Dollar Volume Sold.
2002 - Top Selling Office, Great Smoky Mtn. Board of Realtors, Total Dollar Volume Sold.
2003 - Top Selling Office, Great Smoky Mtn. Board of Realtors, Total Dollar Volume Sold.
2004 - Top Selling Office, Great Smoky Mtn. Board of Realtors, Total Dollar Volume Sold.
2006 - Top Selling Office, Great Smoky Mtn. Board of Realtors, Total Dollar Volume Sold.
2008 – Number One Agent, Great Smoky Mtn. Board of Realtors, Total Dollar Volume Sold.
2009 – Number One Agent, Great Smoky Mtn. Board of Realtors, Total Dollar Volume Sold.
2009 – Top Selling Office, Great Smoky Mtn. Board of Realtors, Total Dollar Volume Sold.
2010 – Top Selling Office & Number One Agent, Great Smoky Mtn. Board of Realtors, Total Units Sold.
2012 – Number One Agent, Great Smoky Mtn. Board of Realtors, Total Units Sold.

 With 46 sales closed already this year and 17 more pending transactions that should be completed in the next few weeks, we continue to have a lot of success in 2013. Unfortunately, we don't sell every property that we list. Currently, we have 38 homes on the market that we don't yet have under contract and a lot can be learned from this set of unsold properties. Today, I ran an analysis of these homes that is shown below:
Most of the information above is self-explanatory, but some clarification of a couple of the columns is probably warranted for people who are not in the real estate profession.

Please pay special attention to the last three columns as these are key. "Days"refers to the number of days that the property has been actively on the market and offered on the MLS (multiple listing service). The next column is "Views", which is a measure of how much activity that particular home is getting on the internet via the Great Smoky Mountain Association of Realtors MLS website. While we display our properties on a large number of unrelated websites in addition to our own, the views number is a good proxy for the overall activity from all of our internet advertising. Any individual (other than licensed agents) who views a property via our MLS database causes to the view count to be added to. Obviously, the more views the better, as that means more interest by the public. The most important set of numbers in this report however is the final column, "Views per Day" and on the report shown above our listings are ranked in descending order based on this views per day column value.

Views per day attempts to account for the fact that some homes have been offered for sale for a longer period of time than others and therefore will naturally have more views. It isn't reasonable to expect a just listed property to have as many views as one which has been on the market for several months. In some cases however, they do! In fact, one of my oldest listings (the Hidden Hills Rd U409 condo) also has one of the smallest total number of views. Clearly, this means that this listing is getting very little attention on the internet. With the same marketing effort and plenty of time to generate results, it is very reasonable to ask why this property is getting so little activity.

There are several reasons that this particular residence is performing so badly in terms of internet activity. These are:

  1. A very aggressive (above market) price that hasn't been sufficiently adjusted
  1. The overall Sevier County condo market is very difficult currently
  1. It is a relatively expensive property with a very high HOA (Home Owners Association) fee

Basically, the best value properties will have more viewings. In my experience, most of the properties that we sell end up with over 1,000 views, and in some cases well over 1,000. While having more than 1,000 views certainly doesn't guarantee a sale, it is a good measurement of how likely a property is to sell. The moral of the story? If you aren't getting any activity something needs adjustment. Maybe the photos aren't attractive, or the description isn't effective. If both of those are good, it generally means that the price is too high. The most attractively marketed property won't sell if it is overpriced and that is the message that I must give to these sellers. Of course, the choice of whether or not to reduce their asking price is entirely theirs...

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