Which home features most interest buyers?

Ever wonder which home features most interest buyers? Well, Point2 Homes has crunched the numbers for you.

As one of Canada’s leading property search websites, Point2 Homes determined that pricing is buyers’ overriding concern during the home buying process. Listings under $100,000 receive 233% more leads and 45% more views than their more expensive counterparts. However, 70% of real estate sales representatives surveyed by Point2Homes say “charm pricing”—listing a home, for example, at $199,999 instead of $200,000—has no bearing on the number of leads they accrue.

Listing pictures are also very important, but post too few or too many and you’ll lose prospective buyers’ interest. Nine in 10 of them rely on the internet to research properties, meaning having listing pictures will generate zero interest.  The perfect balance, on the other hand, is six to 15 photos, even though agents like posting between 26 and 30 photos. Point2 Homes also found that listings with six to 10 pictures generate 52% more leads than listings with either one to five, or too many at 46 to 50.

Inundating prospective buyers with too much listing information, while apparently counterintuitive, tends to repel them. Keep it brief—Point2 Homes says no more than 250 characters—because the average prospective buyer spends only 20% of their time on listings’ details. What this means for sales agents is that they only have one chance to grab a potential buyer’s attention—about two seconds without a listing photo, and 20 seconds with a single one.

Another way to reel in buyers is by focusing on listing type. Point2 Homes found that two-bedroom condos are the most popular searches among Canadians since most urban centres have begun intensifying. Three-bedroom properties get the most views but two-bedroom homes nevertheless produce 14% more leads. One and a half bathrooms are also favourable when it comes to buyer preference, as they generate the most number of views and leads, even though homes with a single bathroom are cheaper. Lastly, condos receive 16% more leads than houses.

Prospective buyers pay close attention to amenities, too. According to Point2 Homes, sales representatives have a propensity to think buyers aren’t attracted to homes with pools, however, those properties actually generate 46% more leads than homes without pools. Properties with views of water also get 18% more leads than properties without those views.