Statistics. The word itself can elicit a love/hate response, depending on how you feel about them; those
who love data and numbers dive right in while those who detest that material may recall suffering
through a college course only because it was a requirement for a major. Yet, most industries rely on
statistics and the real estate industry is no exception.
Real estate is synonymous with statistics. The statistics most often thought of when talking about the
real estate market are average sale prices and the number of active homes on the market. A lesser-
talked-about statistic but one that is immensely beneficial to sellers, buyers, and brokers is the number
of showings-to-pending.
Showings-to-Pending counts the number of buyer showings a property receives from the time that
property goes on the market until it goes pending with a contract. Looking at the average showings-to-
pending helps sellers understand how their homes perform showing-wise relative to the rest of the
market and gauge how soon they should expect to receive an offer. This metric helps buyers track how
quickly a specific property might be expected to go under contract so they know how swiftly to act if
they want to ensure they have a chance to see it. And, brokers find this indicator useful in evaluating the
effectiveness of their marketing and pricing strategies.
Across the Denver metro area in March 2023, the average showings-to-pending was 14.1. This means
that, on average, by the time a property received 14 showings – whether in one day, in one weekend,
over the course of a month or even longer in some cases – the seller should have received at least one
offer and the property should have gone under contract. If that didn’t happen, it would be an indication
for the broker and seller to examine the marketing strategy or the pricing strategy – or both – and
potentially make adjustments to get that home moving.
There are many statistics that brokers rely on to analyze the real estate market and educate their clients
about how the market is performing, and showings-to-pending is definitely a statistic that should be
relied on consistently.