Our house has been on the market six days. Earlier this week, my Realtor hosted an open house for area Realtors. We had 12 real estate professionals visit the home, and I am told that is a very nice number for this kind of event. The feedback on our home both in terms of price and condition was positive.

Now my next question, Edina Realty provides homeowners basic web analytics, but why am I not provided some benchmarks? Here are my private home seller's stats:

1. Number of times my home's "details" page was viewed: 478
2. Number of times my home has been saved as a favorite: 3

Note: Results ignore today's data.

Expanding upon my question. Item #2 is the equivalent of a web analytics conversion. Being saved as a favorite is a desired action. However, with respect to items #1 or #2, just giving me actual numbers is meaningless. Without a frame of comparison, I don't know how to interpret these numbers. Here is what I would really like to know (i.e. benchmarks):

• What is the average "details" curve for a house in my area with similar price points?
• What is a normal conversion to "saved as favorite"?

Edina Realty should have this data. It would be nice for the customer to also see this information. For instance, if I have a strong viewing details and a favorites conversion number compared to the average … and we are also experiencing good traffic through the home (i.e. showings of the home), then I would know my house is being effectively marketed and my price point is well received by the market.

Without the benchmark data, I just have a number. The number 478 is meaningless w/o this information. Good start, Edina Realty, but more work required to have effective analytics.

(click to maximize my data given below)

And always, what it's all about … our house!

• The Movie
• Still Photographs

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See other posts: Selling a House in a Lousy Economy

Tomorrow is D-Day … the first real day of marketing of our home in New Hope, Minnesota via Edina Realty. Our Realtor will host an open house for other area real estate agents. This presents a problem for me. Why? My family has two pets, and I have a job which requires me to work. Our dog and cat are persona non grata at the open house, home showings and work. This raises the question, what's a nerd to do?

The first answer is that I could go out and purchase a 3G data plan, and install a personal mifi for my wife and me. However, this would be an expensive option. Given my cat and dog, and the fact that I need to keep them away from the house tomorrow for 3 hours … the problem is a bit difficult … until I hit upon the idea of van 2.0!

Actually, the solution is rather easy. Although Spot and Cyrus would not be welcome in the local coffee shop, there are many free wireless locations in the immediate neighborhood. Better yet, there are wifi locations where the environs are quite pleasant. This evening I visited my local library branch and tested many parking spots including those spots furthest from the building. Bingo, perfect connections! I then went inside to confirm that my library does not turn off their wireless hub when they shut up shop a few nights per week at 6 pm (most home showings will be in the evening). Thus, I now have the perfect location to set up Van 2.0 … my local library parking lot which has all kinds of trees and a nice lawn surrounding it … in short a very pleasing environment!

I've included a photograph of Van 2.0 in action, complete with Spot 2.0 and Cyrus 2.0. I'm talking on my cell phone, and my computer is running off a power adapter for the car. Now it's time to see if the open house will generate some showings this weekend. 

View prior posts in this series, Selling a Home in a Lousy Economy.

And always, what it's all about … our house!

• The Movie
• Still Photographs

As many of my loyal readers know, Molly and I just built a home in our home town of Duluth. In this rotten economy we took a leap of faith that given our software focused jobs we would stay employed, and could build the house of our dreams near the shores of Lake Superior and across from a north woods waterfall (see our new home).

Late Friday we listed our home of 26+ years. It's now online (see below). Over the next several weeks, months (hopefully not years), I'll describe via my blog what it's like to sell a house in this rotten economy. Hopefully my blog posts will answer the questions:

• We're we stupid to move forward?
• Are we reasonable in our selling expectations?
• Did we set the price to high? to low? ($249,900)
• Are we smart to pay 6% to a traditional realty firm?
• Where will this path lead?

Our home town is in New Hope, Minnesota … a small middle class suburb of Minneapolis.  I doubt anyone would consider New Hope a prestigious address, but it's been a great place to raise Karen, Carl and Erik.

Our initial home marketing decisions were:

• No open house (don't like the idea of lots of unsupervised guests moving through our home)
• A $2,000 investment to refinish the hardwood floors and repaint the 1st floor

Our first important marketing date is this Tuesday. Our realtor, Nancy Lehrman, will host a private open house for other Edina Realty realtors. Molly and I feel that preparing for this private event is key! While my own job with a Fortune 100 company revolves around software, the external web, and social media, I firmly believe I need the help a traditional realty firm. Edina Realty is the biggest realtor in Minnesota, and Nancy comes highly recommended by my daughter's mother-in-law, Kath (also a realtor). Kath, to her credit, told us that having family represent us would not be a good idea. I will always respect Kath for taking that position.

You can learn more about the subject of this experiment below … the link to the still photographs will give you the home particulars. I consider Tuesday Day #1 of our drive into selling our home. Today is T-2 (Sunday). You can follow all the posts in this series via my blog category Economy 2.0.

• The Movie
• Still Photographs

Many of you know we're selling our house of 26+ years …

• The Movie
• Still Photographs

Just listed this afternoon.

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See other posts: Selling a House in a Lousy Economy