It’s not easy being a homebuyer today—or helping buyers secure the home of their dreams. But it’s easier to help buyers succeed if you understand their perspectives, preferences, and limitations.
Even though every buyer is unique, age is one dimension that can play a significant role in your clients’ situation and desires. Understanding generational differences can also help you create more buyer connections and earn their business.
To help you gain valuable insights, this issue of TBR summarizes critical facts and implications from NAR’s 2021 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends Report.
Representing 2% of all purchases and sales, this is the first year Generation Z (buyers ages 21 and younger) has appeared in NAR’s report. However, the sample size is too small to make statistically valid comparisons to other
generations. Watch for more insights on their buying
preferences in future reports.
Even though few buyers would say that buying a home is easy, especially in today’s market environment, it’s encouraging that recent homebuyers expressed overall satisfaction in the process, with 94% of all buyers being at least somewhat satisfied and 64% very satisfied. Satisfaction levels improved with age, with 69% of the silent generation saying they were very satisfied in the buying process, compared to 62% of millennials.
Share of Homebuyers
1. Finding the right home was the most significant hurdle for all recent homebuyers.
By a wide margin, buyers collectively experienced substantial difficulties finding the right property. More than half of all homebuyers (53%) indicated this was the most challenging step, whereas 20% of buyers experienced no difficulties—the second-highest response. Other complications included paperwork (17%), understanding the process and steps (15%), saving
for a down payment (11%), getting a mortgage (7%), property appraisal (4%), and COVID-19 difficulties (2%).
While finding the right home was difficult for all recent buyers, this factor inched lower across all six generations, from younger millennials (58%) to the silent generation (47%).
2. Younger buyers struggled with understanding the home buying process and steps.
Buying a home is rarely easy, but certain steps are harder for some buyers than others. Among younger millennials (ages 22 to 30), 33% said that understanding the buying process was difficult. This figure declined sharply among older buyers, and was only cited by 7% of boomers and silent generation members.
It’s a valuable reminder that you can make business building connections with millennials by sharing what you already know, like the back of your hand—how to buy a home!
Mortgages, in particular, are an aspect of buying that confounds millennials. Share your knowledge with them whenever you can, on social media and in person (when possible). It’s an excellent way to cement your image as a valuable resource to help them achieve their homeownership dreams.
3. Millennials highly prioritize shorter job commutes.
Among all buyers, the top four factors in neighborhood selection were quality of the neighborhood (62%), convenience to job (45%), overall affordability of homes (43%), and convenience to friends/family (41%).
Younger millennials, however, stood out in their strong preference for living near work (74%). The older half of the millennial generation also gave high marks to job convenience (63%) but considered the quality of the neighborhood more critical (69%).
4. Younger buyers are significantly more likely to find their home online instead of through their agent.
It’s no secret that buyers rely heavily on online search sites and may ask you about properties for sale instead of waiting for you to send an alert. But reliance on the internet diminished with age, while dependence on
agents increased. (See chart below.) Numerous factors are influencing these patterns. It will be interesting to see how the trends evolve over the
coming decades.
5. When searching online, different generations prefer different devices.
The most likely first step in the buying process for all buyers is to “look online for properties for sale.” But how do buyers search? Collectively, the use of mobile devices versus desktops or laptops is evenly split. However, a closer look at the data (see chart below) reveals generational differences:
• Younger buyers (ages 22–40) strongly prefer mobile devices
• Buyers ages 41 to 65 split their searches equally between mobile and other devices
• Searches among 66-year-old+ buyers are very likely to occur on desktops and laptops Implication? Any information you provide to assist in home searches should be easy to view on the type of device your buyers use. Increasingly, this means mobile-friendly content.
6. Online video sites are more important to older than younger buyers.
Among all information sources used while searching for a home, real estate agents are rated highest among all buyers (87%), followed by mobile or tablet search devices (76%), open houses (53%), yard signs (41%), and online video sites (41%).
Even though millennials are typically drawn to video content more than older generations, it’s worth noting that interest in online video sites increases with age, ranging from 30% for younger millennials and peaking at
56% for the silent generation.
7. Print newspaper advertisements will still reach a substantial number of buyers in the silent generation.
Nearly one in four silent generation members (24%) said they relied on print newspaper ads as an information source while searching for homes.
Print advertising has plummeted among real estate professionals. Still, if you’re seeking more buyer-clients from this generation, you might want to try marketing your services to seniors in the real estate section of your
local paper.
8. Younger buyers are substantially more likely to rely on referrals to find their agent.
Referrals and prior relationships are the top two ways all recent homebuyers found their real estate agent. Age, however, plays a significant role in the relative importance of these two methods. Millennials are considerably more likely to rely on referrals to find their agent than older generations of buyers. (See chart on page 6.) Perhaps it should not be surprising that repeat business plays a more significant role once a buyer gains age and buying experience.
9. Buyer satisfaction generally increased with age.
Even though few buyers would say that buying a home is easy, especially in today’s market environment, it’s encouraging that recent homebuyers
expressed overall satisfaction in the process, with 94% of all buyers being at least somewhat satisfied and 64% very satisfied. Satisfaction levels improved with age, with 69% of the silent generation saying they were very satisfied in the buying process, compared to 62% of millennials.
10. Even though older buyers are more satisfied with the home buying process, they also say they derived fewer benefits from their agent.
Interestingly, there is not necessarily a correlation between satisfaction levels and benefits received. The top five benefits provided by agents appear in the chart to the right. For each benefit, satisfaction diminished with age. Perhaps this is because older buyers tend to be more experienced homebuyers and don’t rely on their agent’s assistance as heavily as
younger buyers.
