What can we learn?
- If you don’t DIG for the full story, you could easily make decisions based on flawed assumptions.
- If you are off on the List Price, all that dazzling marketing will be wasted and the property will sit on the market.
When you view the property below through the listing on the First Multiple Listing Service, it shows this property had 13,776 square feet, closed on July 16, 2025 and sold at List Price in 154 days. What else is there to know?
The FMLS Archives
A glance at the FMLS archives shows that this property has been on the market since March of 2023. If you manually add up the days on market from the previous listings, that total comes in at 709 days. So why the discrepancy? There was a gap of 100 days which is long enough to disconnect the history in FMLS. But wait there’s more. The calculated days on market from the dates is 717 days. The difference??? The listing that started on 5/28/2024 was input on 6/5/2024 resulting in 145 days on market versus 153.
So, does any of this really matter??? To me it does. I feel like one of my responsibilities as a Listing Agent is to set proper expectations – which I believe means doing to due diligence to show the full picture of what similar properties went through to sell in this market.
Zillow Data
Once a property sells, I cannot find any specific days on market number showing how long it was on the market. You can drill down into the history though and follow the journey manually.
About that Zestimate
I have a hard time with Zestimates in the Atlanta market because the square footage numbers are so unreliable and renovations are not factored in. The algorithms can be much more accurate in suburban settings with more consistent housing stock. Setting that aside, its also hard to trust the Zestimates when they bounce up suddenly when properties are listed for sale – that was a fool’s errand in this case because the final sale price ended up being 59.5% of the Original List Price. ALL THAT SAID, it looks like the Zestimate BEFORE it got “affected” by the listing prices ended up pretty close to reality.
What about the Square Footage?
I have learned that square footage numbers are highly suspect in the Atlanta residential home marketplace. So that price per square foot you see online, probably useless.
This listing stated that according to Public Record the size of the home was 13,776 square feet. I immediately wondered, how close is that to reality?? So many questions…
- Is that the Total?
- Is that just the space that is Finished?
- Is that just the main two above ground levels?
- Is that including any area in the basement?
A quick search on Compflo (an appraisal database I subscribe to) revealed a previous appraisal record with sketches and a breakdown of the square footages
- The above ground main finished floors area = 11, 397 sq. ft.
- The basement (total) = 6,876 sq. ft.
- Finished area in the basement = 5,832 sq. ft.
- Total finished area (all levels) = 17,229 sq. ft.
- Price per sq.ft. based on primary above ground floors = $522 / sq. ft
- Price per sq.ft. based on total finished area all floors = $345 / sq. ft
Bottom Line
When hiring a real estate advisor to help you with the sale of your luxury home in Atlanta, make sure the people you are interviewing are thoroughly researching the comparable sales and are giving you accurate assessments of what it took those properties to sell so you can make well-informed decisions on yours.
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