Fixer-Upper Effect Lingers: Buyers Pay 10 Percent More for Modern Farmhouses

Smart home and sustainable features contribute to a faster sale, according to a new Zillow analysis

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Mar 04, 2020, 08:00 ET

SEATTLE, March 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- From television trend to real estate spend – homes with shiplap, barndoors and farmhouse sinks sell for more and sell faster than expected.

New Zillow research suggests buyers aren't over the farmhouse fad and they're willing to pay a significant premium for features popularized by reality renovation TV shows.

Modern farmhouse style, when mentioned in a for-sale listing, was associated with a 10.3% sale premium, the largest price premium of any home feature or style Zillow looked at. That adds up to about $25,000 on a typical American home.

"Some design trends look great in a photograph, but don't reflect the way most Americans live," said Amanda Pendleton, Zillow Lifestyle Expert. "The modern farmhouse trend seems to be enduring because of its livability. It has a more casual, rustic aesthetic that is meant to be lived in; nothing is precious and the more wear and patina, the better, which makes it so appealing to buyers with children or pets."

High-end, custom features earned significant sale premiums, too. Homes with waterfall countertops, which fall vertically down the side of a kitchen island or peninsula, earned 9.4% more than the expected sale price. Homes with Moroccan tile, characterized by high-contrast geometric patterns, commanded a 7.3% sale premium.

"This analysis didn't look at return on investment, so don't rush out to install a waterfall countertop in your kitchen and assume you'll earn your money back in a sale," said Zillow economist Jeff Tucker. "However, if you have these features in your home, make sure to flaunt them in your listing description during the competitive spring home shopping season. We can't prove these features directly cause the price premiums we found, but the positive correlation is a clear sign that today's home shoppers associate these features with high-quality homes."

Keywords associated with smart homes, such as "smart sprinkler system" and "smart light," and keywords associated with sustainability and energy-efficiency, such as "drought-resistant" and "double-pane windows," contributed to a faster than expected sale. Homes with rattan elements, a hot design trend, sold nearly 13 days faster than expected.

There are many factors that contribute to a home's final sale price, including when a home is listed for sale. In this analysis, Zillow looked at more than 170 features or design elements that were mentioned in the listing descriptions of millions of homes sold in 2018 and 2019.

This year, Zillow used a new methodology¹ that considered a home's pre-listing Zestimate, Zillow's best estimate of a home's value, along with the home's sale price and number of days it was on the market. Listings with each feature were compared with listings of homes without them, controlling for size, age and location of the homes, the time of year listed, and the presence of any of the other keywords analyzed here.

Top 10 Features that Contributed to Homes Selling for More Than Expected

Feature	Price Premium
Modern farmhouse	10.3%
Waterfall countertop	9.4%
Moroccan tile	7.3%
Craftsman	6.0%
Exposed brick	6.0%
Free-standing bath/tub	5.5%
Quartz	5.5%
Dual range/fuel	5.3%
Metal roof	5.1%
pet/dog spa/wash/shower	5.1%

Top 10 Features that Contributed to a Faster than Expected Sale

Feature	Days on Market Faster than Expected
Smart sprinkler system	15.1
Rattan	12.8
Drought-resistant	12.0
Mid-century	10.5
Board and batten	8.7
Carrara (marble)	8.1
Double-pane window	8.0
Pergola	7.9
Butcher block	7.4
Smart light	7.3

About Zillow
Zillow® is transforming how people buy, sell, rent and finance homes by creating seamless real estate transactions for today's on-demand consumer. Zillow is the leading real estate and rental marketplace and a trusted source for data, inspiration and knowledge among both consumers and real estate professionals.

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¹ Methodology: Zillow analyzed closed transactions in the United States in 2018 and 2019 where Zillow could match the sale to the listing description and the home's Zestimate in the month before listing. The listing descriptions were checked for whether they mentioned each feature in the analysis, and then log-linear regression was used to estimate a percentage price difference in one analysis, and days on market difference in the other, as a function of: each home's pre-listing Zestimate, quadratics of age and square footage, local ZIP and MSA-level home value trends, the time of year listed, and the presence of each of these 170+ features in their listing descriptions

SOURCE Zillow