Comfree Success Rate

The new Comfree is here as described in the monthly report:

Further assisting sellers with pricing, ComFree launched the “New ComFree” with a bang. Thursday June 5th ComFree played host to a day of fun-filled activities including special appearances from the Edmonton Esks cheerleaders, Edmonton Rush, Joe FM live on location, and best of all our friends from Big Brothers and Big Sisters were present to take in the fun.

With all the celebration the private listing company now charges $947, up from $699! They also re-animated the corpse of "sales success", now called "success rate" (See previous posts here and here)

We expect our success rate to jump from 73% to the high 80’s maybe even 90’s with the New ComFree.” says Travis Holowach, “Just another reason that the ComFree Advantage works for buyers and sellers in this market.”

I cannot fathom what type of twisted process could be used to arrive at a 73% success rate for Comfree in the current Edmonton market. Comfree hasn't been 73% successful at selling houses for awhile now. However, unlike REALTORS, they are 100% successful at getting paid.

Lets take a look at some metrics that are derived from actual numbers in a repeatable and straightforward way. One is the sales-to-listing ratio and another is sales-to-total inventory. Another insight is to determine the properties that are removed from the inventory each month without selling:

"REMOVED NOT SOLD"
=
PREV. MONTH INVENTORY + NEW LISTINGS - SALES - INVENTORY

Date	Sales	Listing	Inventory	Sales to Listing	Sales to Inventory	Removed Not Sold	Comfree's Sold to Listing
Jan 07	327	419	820	78.0%	39.9%		82%
Feb 07	416	496	837	83.9%	49.7%	63	82%
Mar 07	513	664	893	77.3%	57.4%	95	82%
Apr 07	505	788	1180	64.1%	42.8%	-4	78%
May 07	556	1212	1616	45.9%	34.4%	220	73%
Jun 07	405	1243	2179	32.6%	18.6%	275	61%
Jul 07	277	1100	2696	25.2%	10.3%	306	58%
Aug 07	237	788	2972	30.1%	8.0%	275	58%
Sep 07	201	613	3423	32.8%	5.9%	-39	50% *
Oct 07	146	470	3108	31.1%	4.7%	639	-
Nov 07	124	356	3060	34.8%	4.1%	280	-
Dec 07	91	162	3026	56.2%	3.0%	105	-
Jan 08	151	389	3088	38.8%	4.9%	176	-
Feb 08	164	449	3108	36.5%	5.3%	265	-
Mar 08	201	574	3196	35.0%	6.3%	285	-
Apr 08	233	624	3329	37.3%	7.0%	258	-
May 08	205	597	3386	34.3%	6.1%	335	-

*Changed to sales success

Look how the properties removed and not sold from Comfree inventory has exceeded sales for several months now. This would imply a "success rate" of less than 50%. Also note that it has been an entire year with a sales-to-listing ratio of under 40%, excluding December.

Just some things to consider before shelling out $947.