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Three magic words in a real estate listing can result in five-figure discounts for buyers, according to experts.
A listing that includes the words “sale price” or other similar phrases such as “bargain,” “underpriced,” or “low price” comes with an average discount of 8.5 percent off its asking price.
Those savings translate to about $38,000 less than the median home price in the U.S. According to the Realtor.com report.
“Certain ‘value’-based words used in property descriptions are correlated with lower sales prices and can be used to help homebuyers find truly affordable properties,” Ralph McLaughlin, senior economist at Realtor.com, said in the report.
Homebuyers in the South and Midwest can expect the biggest discounts when a property is “priced to sell” on the listing.
The chart below lists the top ten cities, led by Little Rock, Arkansas. More details on the top ten metropolitan areas are provided below.
Certain phrases in a real estate listing can translate into deep discounts off the sales price.
It’s no surprise that a listing that promises a discount will, of course, include a discount.
But there is a peculiarity in the findings.
Certain real estate markets tend to use these phrases more than others, and they vary widely from state to state.
In an area with fewer “priced to sell” properties, each discount is noticeably larger than in a market with more.
“Why would fewer ‘priced to sell’ properties be correlated with higher discounts?” McLaughlin explained.
“We can’t say definitively why there is a correlation, but it probably has to do with what buyers are used to doing in a particular market.”
For example, the term “asking price” is used on an average of 6.7 percent of properties in Sarasota, Florida, but only 1.9 percent of properties in Long Island, New York.
The areas with the lowest “sale price” discounts were almost exclusively in Florida, where the words appeared most in listings.
Realtor.com data revealed the top 10 places where savings can be greatest:
Little Rock, Arkansas
‘Sale price’ discount: 23 percent
Average savings: $57,494
St. Louis, Missouri
Discount for ‘sale price’: 18.7 percent
Average savings: $49,476
Charleston, South Carolina
Discount for ‘sale price’: 15.9 percent
Average savings: $79,558
Memphis, Tennessee
Discount for ‘sale price’: 14.5 percent
Average savings: $43,262
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Discount for ‘sale price’: 12.6 percent
Average savings: $50,464
Nassau County, New York
Discount for ‘sale price’: 12.5 percent
Average savings: $94,662
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Discount for ‘sale price’: 11.5 percent
Average savings: $89,851
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Discount for ‘sale price’: 11.4 percent
Average savings: $32,801
El Paso, Texas
Discount for ‘sale price’: 11.2 percent
Average savings: $31,295
Wichita, Kansas
Discount for ‘sale price’: 10.9 percent
Average savings: $28,655
