Real estate agents get lucky house prices

As it turns out, there are common number threads among the asking prices of homes in different regions of the country. And not all of these threads are happening by chance.

Sellers and agents use many professional or even personal considerations when naming the listing price of a house. Chief Economist at Trulia, Jed Kolko, set out to determine whether certain numbers [2] are more popular than others and if location plays a role in the commonality of numbers in housing prices by studying the asking prices of homes for sale via Trulia since October 2011.

Kolko and his team looked at every number in the asking price, but focused in on the last non-zero digit in the price. For example, the last non-zero digit in $200,540 is four. The group of economists found a stark statistic right off the bat. The most common last non-zero digit showing up in home prices is the number nine, 53% of the time to be exact. 

A few interesting facts were also revealed regarding the number nine. Only 25% of homes listed for one million dollars or higher have a nine as the last non-zero digit. However, on reduced-price homes, nine was the last non-zero number 54% of the time.

The Trulia theory is that sellers chose the number nine to make the price of the home appear cheaper. 

After observing the excessive use of the number nine, Kolko and team dug a bit deeper into numbers that are commonly considered lucky or unlucky. Their research revealed the number 13, often seen as unlucky, appears 13% less often anywhere in home prices than the number 12 and 17% less often than the number 14.

As far as lucky number seven, the state of Nevada (Viva Las Vegas!) uses it 37% more that states outside Nevada.

What are the odds of that?

mhopkins@housingwire.com [3]