The selling price that any Western Slope home brings depends on any number of factors, the most critical of which is most often how it stacks up alongside its neighborhood comparables. If its comps are in line, the property is virtually certain to attract interest. If overpriced, it’s likely to attract little interest; if bargain-priced, it’s sure to draw a crowd.

Studying the significance of the many other factors that contribute to how a home sale fares is a tricky business. Predicting what an “expected sale price” for any Western Slope home would be is a necessary starting point—yet that figure would have to depend on any number of factors, all of which combine to create how the house shows.

That being said, it’s still interesting to see what the researchers come up with when they cull through the hundreds of thousands of national home listings, looking for listing features that coincide with better-than-expected final sales prices. Zillow Research does this from time to time—most recently coming up with a “top 10” list that offers few surprises, except for one: that’s a “steam” thing.

The top ten listing features include “professional appliance” (meaning at least one quality  brand name appliance), “outdoor kitchen,” “prep sink,” “waterfall countertop,” “wine cellar,” and “heated floor.” It’s not surprising that the majority are features found in gourmet kitchens and well-designed bathrooms. One feature you might not predict is “Pot filler”: that’s the faucet located on the backsplash behind a range or cooktop. Pot fillers are relative newcomers in popularity. Non-kitchen features listed were “shed/garage studio” and “heated floor.”

But especially interesting was the presence of two “steam” features—“steam shower,” and the leading feature, topping the list with a 34% premium over “expected price”: “steam oven.” This surprising finding might be explained by its unexpectedness. Like “pot filler,” it could well trigger curiosity—and therefore, showing traffic. But more showings don’t automatically result in premium sales prices—to achieve those, real value is required. You have to suspect that any Western Slope home with a built-in steam oven has a number of other distinctive features, too.

When your own Western Slope home is soon to go on the market, we hope you will give us a call. We’ll create a listing that brings premium results!