November 7, 2026 · 7 min read
The Buyer Data Slide: NAR Numbers for Your Listing Presentation
A seller deserves one slide that shows how buyers shop, with the source on it. Here is that slide built line by line from NAR's 2025 Profile, plus the sentences to avoid.
Put one buyer slide in your listing presentation, with three or four figures from NAR's 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers: where buyers found their home, which online materials they rated very useful, and where their search began. Word each as a plain report of what buyers said, put the source on the slide, and promise nothing.
The slide has one job. It shows the seller why the photos, video and floor plan you propose are not decoration, because buyers say they rely on them. It does not predict her sale. The gap between a fact about buyers and a claim about her result is where most presentation statistics go wrong.
If you are building the full appointment, the free Listing Presentation Talk Track Prompt writes the spoken ten minutes and checks the draft for unsupported numbers. This post builds the one slide that sits inside it.
Start with the question the seller is asking
Sellers do not ask for statistics. They ask a quieter question: will the way you plan to market my home matter?
NAR's 2025 Profile, which covers transactions from July 2024 to June 2025, is a survey of buyers. It tells you how buyers behaved. So the slide can answer one question honestly: how do the people who might buy this home look for it? Anything about price, speed or the local market is a different question, and this slide does not touch it.
A figure makes the cut only if it passes three tests:
It describes buyers, not outcomes for this home.
It connects to something you will actually do for the seller.
You can put the source, the year and the group measured on the slide in a few words.
The figures, and what each one actually says
Every figure below is from NAR's 2025 Profile. Read the wording closely, because the wording is the whole exercise.
52%, 27% and 9%. NAR reports that 52 percent of buyers found the home they purchased on the internet, 27 percent through a real estate agent and 9 percent through a friend, relative or neighbor. This is where the buyer found the home, not where the search began.
81%. Among buyers who used the internet in their search, NAR found photos very useful to 81 percent.
58%. NAR reports that 58 percent of buyers considered online video sites very useful, and 52 percent used online video sites as an information source.
46% and 20%. NAR found that 46 percent of buyers said their first step was looking online for properties for sale, while 20 percent first contacted a real estate agent.
Each has a trap built in. The 52 percent is not "52 percent of homes sell online." The 81 percent is not "photos sell homes." The 58 percent says buyers found video useful, which is an opinion about helpfulness, not proof that a listing with video sells faster or for more.
The survey itself is worth one line on your slide's footer. According to NAR, it was mailed in July 2025 to 173,250 recent buyers, and 6,103 responses came from primary residence buyers. That is a national sample of people who bought a primary residence, not buyers in her neighborhood and not investors or vacation-home buyers. The highlights PDF from NAR gives the survey method, and the individual exhibits sit in the full Profile.
The slide, built line by line
Here is one finished slide. Plain white or your brand background, one headline, three lines, a source line. If it needs a chart, it has too much on it.
Headline: How buyers shop for a home
Line one: 52% of buyers found the home they bought on the internet. 27% found it through an agent.
Line two: Among buyers who searched online, 81% rated photos very useful. 58% of buyers rated online video sites very useful.
Line three: 46% of buyers started by looking online. 20% started by contacting an agent.
Source line: NAR 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers (July 2024 to June 2025 purchases, primary residence buyers, national survey).
Every line is a report of what buyers said. Nothing on it says "will," "promise" or "your home." The seller connects the dots herself.
The order matters. Line one sets the stage. Line two gives the reason your plan has photos and video in it. Line three is the quiet one: 46 percent of buyers start online, and only 20 percent start by contacting an agent, so the first impression of her home happens before your phone rings.
Wording traps, and what to say instead
Sellers hear a statistic and file it as a promise. Your sentence has to survive that.
Overclaim: "Video sells homes faster." Defensible: "In NAR's 2025 Profile, 58% of buyers called online video sites very useful in their search."
Overclaim: "Professional photos matter to 81% of buyers." Defensible: "Among buyers who used the internet in their search, 81% rated photos very useful."
Overclaim: "52% of buyers will find your home online." Defensible: "52% of buyers found the home they bought on the internet."
Overclaim: "Most buyers don't need an agent to find a home." Defensible: leave it off. The figure says where buyers found the home, not who they hired. NAR's highlights report that 88 percent of buyers purchased through an agent or broker.
Three habits keep the wording honest:
Keep the group in the sentence. "Buyers who searched online" and "all buyers" are different groups with different results.
Keep the verb as reported. "Very useful" and "found their home" are the survey's own words. "Prefer," "need" and "decide based on" are not.
Keep the year on it. A figure from 2025 will be replaced when NAR publishes the next Profile. Put a reminder in your calendar for each November.
What stays off the slide
Three kinds of content do not belong:
Local numbers. Prices, days on market and inventory for her area change by the week and belong in a market analysis you prepare for that appointment. A national buyer survey cannot support a local claim.
Numbers from your own past listings without a record. If you say "my listings get X," you need the list behind it.
Anything about who buys. Describe how buyers search, never who they are.
How to say it in 45 seconds
The slide is a prop. The words are yours. A version that works:
"Before we talk about what I will do, here is what buyers told NAR about how they shop. More than half found their home online. Among buyers who searched online, 81 percent called photos very useful. So the first thing I would do is build the photo and video plan, and here is the shot list I would send you."
Then stop and ask: "How do you want the home to look to someone scrolling on a phone?"
One check before you present: ask what the seller could repeat to her spouse that night. If the answer is a promise you never made, reword the line.
How Urban Marketing Edge handles this
We build the plan behind the slide so it is never a stretch. When we handle a brokerage's listing marketing, every listing gets one matched set across five stages, coming soon, just listed, open house, under contract and sold, built for feed, stories, email and print. The agent submits the listing through the dashboard with details and photos, and every launch comes with a shot list so the set works. We do not do the photography. The agent captures the home with a photographer or phone, and we supply the plan, the shot list and the finished pieces.
That matters for the slide, because the buyer figures on it describe the materials the launch set produces. The Listing Launch Checklist shows the sequence with its timing. For a broker who wants every agent to open with the same slide, the fix is one approved version in a shared template, with the source line written out in full, so the wording does not drift from agent to agent. Our pre-listing presentation post covers the rest of the appointment.
Questions brokers ask
Which statistics should go in a listing presentation?
Use buyer-behavior figures from a named national source that connect to what you will do: where buyers found their home, what they rated very useful online, and where their search began. Skip local market numbers unless you prepared them for that seller, and skip any figure you cannot source.
How many statistics are too many?
On the buyer slide, three or four. Each added number dilutes the others, and a seller remembers one or two at most. If a figure does not support something in your marketing plan, leave it out.
Can I say that listings with video sell faster?
Not from the NAR figures. They report that 58 percent of buyers considered online video sites very useful, which is an opinion about helpfulness. Say that, and let the seller connect it to your video plan.
Do I need to cite NAR on the slide itself?
Yes. Put the report name, the year and the group measured in the source line. A seller who asks where a number came from should see the answer without you scrolling to notes.
How often should I update the slide?
Once a year. NAR released the 2025 Profile in November 2025, so check its site each November for a newer edition and swap the numbers. Never mix figures from two different years on one slide.
Book a 30-minute strategy call
If your listing presentation has statistics nobody has checked, or each agent in your office builds a different version, bring it to a call. We will go through your slide, flag the lines that overclaim, and show you how we keep one approved version in every agent's hands. No pitch deck, no pressure.
Book a 30-minute strategy call and we will map the simplest fix first. If you would like to see how our support works first, start with our plans.
