Even though receiving a bad reputation in the past years, millennials are reported to have surpassed the population of Baby Boomers in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. Millennials are commonly categorized in the age bracket of 16 to 36 years old and were born in between the 1980s and the year 2000.
As this generation is growing in age and population, according to the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) Home Buyer and Seller Generation Trends study, millennials are already composing an increasing number of home buyers since a majority of the members of this generation can already afford single-family homes outside urban areas.
“The median age of a millennial homebuyer is 30 years old, which typically is the time in life where one settles down to marry and raise a family,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said. “Even if an urban setting is where they’d like to buy their first home, the need for more space at an affordable price is for the most part pushing their search further out.”
Millennials are also part of the big real estate trends to watch out for 2017 because of their buying power to afford single-family homes in the suburbs or rent out properties in urban areas. This would be the best opportunity to switch gears and see the millennials in a new light – the perfect clients to show hot properties on sale.
To have the attention of this tech-savvy generation, here are ways how property brokers can increase chances of sales with millennials.
Know your ways around social media
Millennials know how to use social media. They use social media such as Facebook and Twitter to communicate with other people and engage in activities like searching businesses and its reviews from customers. Pew Research Center has provided study results from their research that 82 percent online adults ages 18 to 29 use Facebook, 30% of online adults under 50 use Twitter, and 55% of online adults ages 18 to 29 use Instagram.
For property brokers, social media can give you the opportunity to connect and engage with buyers in the platform they use the most. Update your social media accounts and provide clear posts and images to promote interaction. Also, get customer reviews from previous clients and place it on your social media accounts to add credibility and reliability.
Use mobile
This is the age of mobile phones wherein users surf the web through their mobile devices more than their desktops and laptops. Millennials use their mobile phones in almost every aspect of their life, to research in everything they can think of – even real estate properties, for entertainment, to communicate with others and more.
Getting to appreciate the advantages in mobile to reach your target market can be rewarding. Use mobile apps that can help you attract more millennials, sell more properties and to easily compare to competitors and also use it as a new mode of communication other than setting meetings and meet ups.
Focus on responsiveness
Since tech-savvy, millennials have developed a high standard when it comes to customer service and responsiveness. Some home sellers will think this as an annoying trait of millennials, but for others, this is a chance to have an opportunity and edge from competitors. Some of these millennials prefer to talk over the phone, send text messages or emails. As a real estate agent, you better know how to adjust in circumstances like this. Know how to adjust in communicating to millennials and how to communicate with patient clients. Make responsiveness a priority to keep millennials staying in touch.
Know how to position yourself
Frequent millennials who are going to buy homes are first timers and it is important for you to know to position yourself as a person they can ask questions to, and an agent who is selling homes. Home buying has complications and can be pressuring and overwhelming. Being a resource person can help build relationships and trust with potential customers and can give you a strong reputation that can attract them more. You can achieve this by creating original content in blogs and provide advice to connect to more first-time home buyers, millennials or not.
Know how to sell a neighbourhood than a home
Selling a home is not just the property itself, but as a whole – the neighbourhood. Millennials are not only interested in the home they are going to move into, but also the community that they are going to immerse themselves with. Provide information on the local things that are happening in the area, such as events, restaurants, bars, ways of transportation and other things. Millennials want an area where they can align their interests, passion and needs. So you better have that appropriate information to provide them with.
Invest in video
A blog post from Animoto said that millennials are attracted to video. It provided statistics that 80 percent of millennials consider video content when researching a purchase decision, 7 out of 10 millennials are likely to watch a company video when shopping online, 76 percent of millennials follow brands on YouTube and 60 percent of millennials prefer to watch a company video over reading a company newsletter. To get the attention of potential millennial homebuyers, come up with ways that involve videos such as virtual tours, customer testimonials and educational tips that can help them through the purchase.
Millennials have since received a bad image from the past years, but they are now composing a majority of the home buying population. With all these tips provided to properly understand millennials and how they interact with them better, property brokers victoria will now have more knowledge to handle and attract potential millennial homebuyers and lift marketing sales.
