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.

Attention Comfree Sellers

If you want to sell you need to lower your price. Follow the steps below to arrive at a more reasonable asking price.

1. Find a similar property listed on the MLS. By similar I mean the same number of bedrooms/bathrooms in the same location.

2. WRONG. That house is better than yours. Pick a slightly less desirable one. Your house is not as special as you think it is.

3. Write down the listing price.

4. Multiply this number by 0.97 - listings on the MLS that are selling are averaging about 97% of asking.

5. Multiply this number by 0.95 - this is an additional adjustment factor due to the high number of listings and low number of sales in the current market.

6. Round down to the nearest cool sounding number

Take for example this townhouse in Millwoods (Edmonton) listed at $327,900.

Find a similar listing on the MLS like the one here for $255,000. Same building same square footage.


Since this is on the MLS and hasn't sold yet its fair to say that it will likely sell for under asking. Average is about 97%.

255,000 * 0.97 = $247,350

Apply the extreme market conditions adjustment factor

247,350 * 0.95 = $234,983

round down

$234,900

Steps 1-3 are the most important. If there is a high inventory and low level of sales on the MLS why would someone spend significantly more to buy privately?

Days on Market (DOM)

This post will explain why Days on Market (DOM) is not a great indicator of market trends. Bob Truman has mentioned this a few times on his widely viewed blog so I thought It would be worthwhile to dig a little deeper here.

From DailyStats.ca (what's new):

Jan 24
15% of the single family homes listed this month have already sold or conditionally sold. Average DOM was 11.

Jan 23
Homes are now starting to sell faster. Days on Market(DOM) last week was down to 48. It was as high as 62 during the last week of December.

By Jan 24 the days on market for properties listed and sold in the same month could not possible exceed 23. If they were all listed on Jan 1 and sold Jan 24 that would be 23 days on market. I would expect that this average would end up being half that as the listings and sales being distributed through the month. So average DOM of 11 is not very meaningful.

Without even looking at the stats I can say that all the homes listed in July that have sold in January have an average DOM of over 150.

Days on Market only includes properties that have SOLD. It does not include ones that remain on the market. If there is a a low level of sales and high inventory it is possible that the new listings are selling more often while the others sit.

Days on market can be reset by relisting on the MLS. Its no secret that this is occasionally done to make a listing appear fresh and increase the chance for a sale.

Also, consider the report from Comfree Edmonton.

Ave. Days on Market: 64

But looking at the unofficial stats from "leendart" posted on the bubble blog shows Active Average DOM on Dec - 29 to be 111. Also this number would be higher if data collection started earlier and becomes more accurate over time. See unofficial stats weekly and monthly.

Edmonton Comfree Stats - December

Where are they?

Update: Comfree stats posted Jan 16.

Edmonton Comfree Sales

Comfree recorded 146 sales for the month of October in Edmonton. There is currently 21 months of inventory on Comfree with 3108 active listings at current sales rate.

21 months.

Compared with September's total of 201 sales are down 27%.
Compared with last October's total of 354 sales are down nearly 60%.

Comfree moved less than half the homes as they did the same month last year.

October Report

With current inventory at 3108 Comfree has over a BILLION dollars of inventory and 52 million dollars of sales in October.

Note that they do not include the mystery stats "sold to listing" or "sales success".

Edmonton Comfree Mystery Stats

On the Comfree monthly reports there was something called the "Sold to Listing Ratio". For Edmonton in August this was 58%. Looking at the report I have no idea where this comes from.

New Listings = 788
Sales = 237
Total inventory = 2927
Sales/New Lisitngs = 30%
Month of Inventory = 12.3 months
That sounds a lot worse than 58% sold to listing ratio! Also worse the 45 days on market stat they used.

In September this stat was changed to "Sales Success" and was 50%. It remains mysterious:

New Listings =613
Sales = 201
Sales/New Lisitngs = 0.328 = 32.8%
Total inventory = 3423
Month of Inventory = 17 months

Wow! 17 months of inventory at current sales with Comfree. Thats a meaningful stat.

Edmonton Monthly Reports


A side note:
It costs $699 to list on Comfree in Alberta but only $399 in Australia! After currency conversion thats $350 CAN.