According to a Washingon Post article, homes priced at an "exact" amount tend to sell for more that homes priced with lots of zeros.
Researchers at Cornell (spending those grant dollars well, I see) conducted lab tests last year on graduate students (?) and examined sale prices in a couple of busy locations in the US. How they accessed MLS data is anyone's guess...
Anyway, the results were that people tended to view the exact price more favorably than the "big number" price.
"The study concluded that because people are used to precise numbers for items that don't cost much and to round numbers for large amounts, consumers generally and home buyers specifically tend to perceive that a price is smaller if there are digits at the end instead of zeros."
Even the researchers thought this was a bit "ridiculous" but asserted that our response to a price was more than just "deliberative reasoning". So, a home priced at $435,500 looks more reasonable to us than $436,000. Even better, $498,750 would look better than $500,000 (that's a lot of zeros!). Their study concluded that a favorably-priced home sold for about $1,400 more.
The Washington Post article also referenced some research done by Redfin where they found that a home priced in an increment of $500 tended to be the most favorable.
While this is nothing new to any of us, I suppose it's an interesting note to remember when discussing price with a seller.
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