Artificial intelligence software company Restb.ai has released a report on the effectiveness of floor plans on days on market.
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Among other uses, Restb.ai’s computer vision models are powering a new way for consumers to find homes and speeding up the pace at which appraisers greenlight mortgages.
Now Inman has learned it’s putting its AI wisdom to use to document how very specific marketing assets overlap with a home’s ability to sell, and it appears all those terribly staged images of agents pointing at floor plans may finally have their place in your marketing arsenal.
The Restb.ai Special Report series will be a semi-annual breakdown of what the company has learned from reading millions of property photos submitted to its many multiple listing partners. The first examines how the existence of a floor plan impacts days on market (DOM). Do consumers consider them valuable before listing a listing? Yes, according to a July 24 press release.
One hundred thousand photos were used to generate the first report. Listing pages were read between May 1, 2023, and April 30, 2024, across 10 markets, including major cities like Chicago, Phoenix and Houston and mid-size markets like Portland, Oregon, and Grand Rapids, Michigan, the release said. The diversity was key to ensuring the data captured by the AI represented a healthy cross-section of how floor plans influence real estate sales activity.
Results confirmed surface-level conclusions — Chicago had the highest number of floor plans included with listings, St. Louis the least — and that their use is growing. More compelling findings showed that agents who use a floor plan will sell their client’s home in less time, especially in St. Louis, where using one cut DOM by 41 percent. In Chicago, DOM went from an average of 11.3 days to 8.5.
The city of Portland cut its use of floor plans in the time studied, but still, those listing agents who encouraged their use sold a home almost two days faster, on average. The outlier was Las Vegas, where using a floor plan increased DOM by 2 percent. Apparently, buyers there would rather not know how a home is designed.
Restb.ai was the first software provider to sign its initials on the new foundation curing under the real estate industry, a hardening mix of artificial intelligence and quickly evolving machine learning solutions. The company’s AI quickly scans and “reads” still images to learn their contents, which can be translated into actionable data when processed at scale.
In an interview with Inman in 2023, the company’s Chief Product Officer Nathan Brannen said they learned that twilight edits on exterior photos result in fewer days on market.
“We did do a study on overcast photos, is it dusk, or if it’s snowy, and studied the impact on price. We found that photos taken in overcast conditions were on the market for an average of 12 days longer. So, those companies doing sky-replacement edits … it’s worth it.”
On its new floor plan revelations, Brannen made sure to note that they vary by market, as the data shows.
“Our study highlights how floor plans can enhance the appeal of a listing, but their impact varies based on specific market dynamics. Integrating floor plans into property listings can be a crucial decision for selling agents, offering a competitive edge in markets with a high presence of floor plans,” he said.
On a broader scale, the data showed a steady volume of floor plans can lift an entire market. Markets with at least 10 percent of listings containing floor plans showed an average reduction of 1.4 days in DOM, equating to an 18 percent decrease, the study showed.
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