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9 Words Could Hurt the Sales Price of Your Home

This article is more than 8 years old.

Certain words can hurt the sales price of your home, according to new data.

Describing your place in a real estate listing as a home with "potential" that needs only "cosmetic" updates or "TLC" could impact the final sale price. If you're hoping for a bigger sale, an analysis of 24,000 home sales by Zillow shows that you should avoid words like "investment" or "bargain."

Lower-cost homes described as having "potential" sold for almost 5 percent less than expected on average, according to the analysis conducted for the book "Zillow Talk: The New Rules of Real Estate." Mid-priced homes described as a "bargain" sold for 3.5 percent less on average than anticipated.

"As soon as we hear 'bargain,' we're unfortunately wired to think the opposite," the authors stated.

The research found that homes deemed an "investment" sold for nearly 7 percent less than expected on average.

In all, the research revealed nine words to avoid and 15 helpful words to add to try to increase sales prices.

Zillow’s analysis echoes an earlier study that found the term "good buy" is linked to a price cut of about 5 percent, while "motivated" sellers not only earn less, but also wait longer for homes to sell. "New paint" and "good location" also hurt the sales price, according to that Journal of Real Estate Research study, which analyzed nearly 60,000 residential sales in Texas and real estate agent comments about those homes.

"Because many of the comments have a statistically verifiable pricing effect, real estate agent comments are important to pricing," the study concluded, "though some comments may be more hype than help."