Real estate sales transactions are often the biggest financial decision that people will make. The stakes are high: as a seller, setting the right list price and negotiating for the right offer can make the difference between a successful sale or continued waiting. Meanwhile, getting the highest price possible can mean thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in additional, usually tax-exempt, income (see financial example of how you can gain additional thousands of dollars from your home sale).

Balancing these goals can be a challenge, especially when time is a factor (for example, when buying another home, or relocating. Questions such as:

Should I list my home at $300,000 or $315,000?

require an objective answer based on actual market data.

For example: “What are the buyer’s chances of purchasing a similar home at this price? How soon could the buyer purchase a similar home?”

to help you select your strategy and present your case

For example: “Your likelihood of buying a similar home at this price is just 55%, and in that case, you’d still have to wait 30 additional days”.

This also helps you to negotiate effectively against the extensive research of aggressive buyers (An example from the Real Estate Journal, 2003, in a case where the seller did not have this capacity, shows that: "After tracking local sales electronically for a year, the buyer used the research to back up a low-ball bid on a 10-bedroom $1 million-plus house nearby -- and got it for more than 20% below the asking price")

Reference

(1) Sigmund, Fehr and Nowak, “The Economics of Fair Play”, Scientific American, January 2002, p. 84.