Data-Driven Real Estate: Targeting Your Ideal Clients

Jim dives into the latest National Association of Realtors Profile of Homebuyers and Sellers, revealing critical data points to help real estate professionals target their marketing efforts more effectively. Highlights From the Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers The demographic trends show significant shifts in buyer age and preferences that create new opportunities for agents who understand these changes.

• First-time buyer share decreased to 24% of market, lowest since NAR began collecting data in 1981
• Median first-time buyer age increased to 38 years, repeat buyer age rose to 61 years
• 86% of all buyers utilized a real estate agent
• 77% of buyers interviewed only one agent before deciding
• 40% of buyers found their agent through a friend, neighbor, or relative
• Online photos (41%) were rated as the most valuable content when searching for homes
• Typical home seller age reached 63 years, with median ownership of 10 years
• FSBOs sold for $55,000 less on average than agent-represented homes
• Modern kitchens with islands (60%), home offices, and energy efficiency features are high priorities
• Millennials (25-43) represent the largest buying group at 38% of purchases

For questions about home inspections or to learn how Habitation Investigation helps real estate agents close more deals, call us or visit homeinspectionsinohio.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 Podcast Introduction
• 1:33 First-Time Buyer Demographics
• 4:30 Home Search Process Insights
• 8:44 Agent Selection & Recommendations
• 11:54 Seller Demographics & FSBO Data
• 15:13 Marketing Strategies For Different Audiences
• 19:35 Episode Closing & Contact Info

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast, where we discuss topics, upcoming events, news and predictions with real estate professionals and entrepreneurs. Listen and learn what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain advantages over the competition and gain market share. Subscribe for the latest news and discussion on what it takes to stand out from the crowd. Now here's your host, jim.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Hey everybody. This is Jim with Standing Out and how Podcast. Laura is watching a movie with Megan, so I'm going to do this one by myself. She's enjoying a little daughter-mother time together, so that's all well and good. What I'm going to do. I got a, I guess, information and it's highlights from the profile of homebuyers and sellers. It's called the National Association of Realtors. I'll go over some data with that and hopefully this stuff will be good information for you to help you in your sales and your marketing. But first let's listen to this.

Speaker 3: 1:09

Habitation investigation is the way to go for a home inspection in Ohio. Trusted licensed home inspectors for your needs, from radon to mold to warranties for a great home inspection, you really can't go wrong. Visit home inspections in ohiocom all right, everybody.

Speaker 2: 1:34

So data is important. You need to know if what you're doing is effective or not, because it's terrible to spend a lot of time doing some kind of marketing effort and then you later on find out it didn't work. You need to know fairly quickly. That way you, if it's working, great, maybe pump more time, money and effort into it. If it's not working, then you go all right, I'm going to allocate my time and energy and money to another marketing task or event. So I'm going to go through some data. Hope this stuff is good for you.

Speaker 2: 2:18

Now, first-time buyers this compared to you know what? Like 2024. First-time buyer decreased to 24 percent of the market share. It was 32 percent the previous year. So this past year was the lowest share market share first-time buyers since uh nar began collecting this data 1981, 1981. Now the median first-time buyer age increased to 38 years old and it was 35 years from the previous year. Also, the typical repeat buyer age increased to 61, when it was 58 the year before that. 73% of recent buyers did not have a child under 18 in their house. This is the highest percentage recorded. On that, 62% of the buyers were married couples, 20% were single females, 8% were single males and then 60% were unmarried couples. So going just this, you would probably do well. If you want to work for first-time homebuyers, look for somebody around the age of 38 and married, or if you're recently married, that would be good as well. Finds most up down here Since 1981, yeah, it's just generally trending up. In 1981, the average age was 36 for the repeat buyers. Now it is 61, so that is definitely creeping up there for for sure. All buyers is creeping up started 31. Look at those 29 for first time buyers back in 1981. So so yeah, people are waiting to buy a house. It could be because the cost of houses have gone up so much.

Speaker 2: 4:32

Let me look at some other data here. 85% of buyers last year bought a previously owned house. Recent buyers who purchased new homes brand new homes were looking to avoid renovation and problems with plumbing or electricity, and that was at 42%. That's why they bought a previously owned house. Detached single-family homes is by far the most common home type for buyers, at 75%. The median distance between the home that the recent buyers purchased and the home they moved from was 20 miles, and that is down from 2022, where it was 15 miles. In 2022, that could be the time where people are really wanting to get out of the city and get to the countryside and they're willing to drive farther away for that. Overall, buyers are expected to live in their home for a median time of 15 years. 25% of buyers said they were never moving out.

Speaker 2: 5:57

Now, regarding the home search process in 2024, the home buying process for many it started online. 43% of buyers indicated that their first step was to look for properties on the internet. 86% of all buyers utilized a real estate agent. 86% of all buyers utilize a real estate agent. Buyers spent a medium of 10 weeks searching for a home in 2024. Typically, they looked at seven homes and two of those homes were only viewed online. Of those homes were only viewed online. Later on, they say all home buyers use the internet to search for a home.

Speaker 2: 6:49

The most valuable content on websites were photos. 41% said that was the most valuable content they could find on the internet when looking for a house. On the internet, when looking for a house, detailed information on the property was 39% and floor plans were 31%. So I know when we do home inspections me personally I know all the inspectors that we have they do it as well. When they're getting ready to go to a house the day before, typically they are going to go online and look at pictures of the house because they know what they want to know what to expect.

Speaker 2: 7:25

And when I click online to a listing and I see there's 81 photos of the house, that gives me a good feeling like, hey, this house is well taken care of and they are proud of it. This house is well taken care of and they are proud of it. When I go see a listing and there's like three photos, that doesn't give a whole lot of confidence that the house is well taken care of. So having a lot of photos definitely gives a boost in confidence to the viewer that the house is going to be in good shape, that the house is going to be in good shape.

Speaker 2: 8:05

Home buyers primarily sought help from an agent or broker in finding the right home to purchase 49% reported that and negotiating the terms of the sale 14%. 40% of the buyers found their agent through a friend, neighbor or relative and that trend is really amongst first-time homebuyers 51% relied on that. So make certain you keep in touch with your friends, relatives, past clients. Remind them that what you do for a living is you sell real estate, and most buyers interviewed only one agent before making their decision. That was true for 77% of repeat buyers and 67% of first-time buyers, and 88% of buyers would use their agent again or recommend them to others.

Speaker 2: 9:06

That is crazy that they interviewed only one agent, which tells me you need to be found first on the internet or you just need to be out there, so you are the first agent they come across. 74% of the buyer financed their home, decreased by 80% the year before. This is an all-time high. Last year, 26 of home buyers paid cash for the home, 52% for some buyers use a conventional loan to finance their home, 29% use FHA, 9% use a VA loan, 79% reported that they believe buying the home is a good investment and of those 39%, it was better than owning stocks.

Speaker 2: 10:10

Depending upon the age, the whole stock market crashed. What was that? 2008, 2009? If you were a teenager then, or maybe a little bit, yeah, probably a teenager, maybe a little, a little younger than that you, that's all. You heard that a lot stocks crashing, so you would be naturally a little scared of stocks. Now, if you do listings, the typical age typical age of a home seller was 63 last year and that's the highest record so far of sellers. The median age of years a seller owns their home was 10 years, which is steady. I think that was the same number from the year before. Using those two data points, if you could find, and there's going to be some variations in this course. But if you could market to 63-year-olds that own their house for 10 years, you would have a better than average shot of getting the listing on those homes.

Speaker 2: 11:23

And here's a stat 50% of sellers use the same real estate agent to represent them when they purchase or sell their home, and that number jumped to 71% for sellers within 10 miles of their home purchase. 10 miles is not that far, so if you're working with somebody who's going to sell and buy a house, let them know you travel well beyond 10 miles. That way it expands your reach. You can get more stuff that way. The real estate agent reputation remains the most important factor when sellers select an agent to sell their home, and an agent's trustworthiness and honesty. All right, trustworthiness and honesty rate at 21% as being the most important. The reputation was 35%. That seems odd to me. I would have placed the I would have voted more for the trustworthiness and honesty above, but that's what people are doing. That's what the data says.

Speaker 2: 12:48

All right, here's for sale by owners Nobody's favorite really. 90% of the sellers sold with assistance of a real estate agent, up from 89% the year before, and only 6% were FSBO sales, which is a historical low. For 38% of all Fizbo sellers. The main reason to sell Fizbo was because they sold to a relative, friend or neighbor, so there's a higher level of trust between the buyer and seller of those. Fizbo's typically sell for less than the selling price of other homes. Fizbo's homes sold for median price of $380,000 in 2023, which is up from $310,000 in 2022, still far lower than the selling price of all homes, which was $435,000. So you got $55,000 difference in the average sales price between for sale by owner versus working with a real estate agent.

Speaker 2: 14:09

So, using that date, all this information, you man, if you know, when somebody's lived in their house 10 years, that's the average for the people in the cellar. So 10 to 15 years. Because nothing in the stats said that they buyers expect to be in their home for an average 10 to 15 years. Because nothing stats said that they buyers expect to be in their home for an average of 15 years. Marketing to somebody between 10 and 15 years might be a good demographic to market to. Now I pulled some other data also. Let me pull that up. Pulled up, used some AI.

Speaker 2: 15:03

Here they're talking about the target audience for marketing, the millennials who they don't have 25 to 43 years old. This is the largest purchasing group 38%. The Gen Xers, 44 to 58, were 24% of all buyers and then baby boomers, who they had at 59 to 77, were 24% of all buyers and then baby boomers, where they had a 59% to 77%, were 31% combined. Because of the age of the millennials, which is the largest person in the group. Using social media will be big. Email marketing will be big, then traditional advertising, which is the same thing as print, uh, maybe a little, maybe some, uh, not radio spots, but like broadcast, for if you go for the older people, you should do that.

Speaker 2: 16:05

But for content marketing, blog posts, videos, videos, infographics on topics such as first-time buyer guides, understanding mortgages, down payments and closing costs, because a lot of people do not understand those feature spotlights, benefits of energy-efficient homes, smart technology and modern kitchens, marketing trends, smaller homes, because there was one other thing the size of the house desire actually went down a little bit, not a significant change in size, but people are looking for smaller, slightly smaller homes than it did in recent years. It was also mentioned to offer virtual tours. That way the buyers, especially millennials, they can view the properties remotely because majority of the home searches start online. I think they almost all have some online component to them. Lots of pictures yeah, the desired home size decreased from 2,260 square feet in 2003 to now 2,067 feet in 2023. Some special features desired and this is probably big with the millennials is home office, energy efficiency, some smart home technology such as security cameras, programmable thermostats, video doorbells, and then kitchen with an island. Modern kitchen with an island was a 60% priority. Some people really like their walk-in pantries, but kitchen with an island big and then multi-zone HVAC systems, mainly for the energy savings.

Speaker 2: 18:08

So I hope this information was actually helpful and it's just not a bunch of numbers coming at you. But I would use some of these stats and I'll put the stats in the link to the stats in the show note. But I would look at the stats and go who matches the typical buyer? And it's going to be the millennial. I would target them and if it's a first-time buyer, you do one thing. If it's an old, it's looking. Somebody's already bought a house and you want to do listings. Man, they'd live in the house 10 to 15 years Because on average they stay there in 10 years, but some of the things. They plan on 15, but somewhere between that 10 and 15, that's when they move. So I would use that information. That's about it. If you have any questions, give a call.

Speaker 2: 19:11

Not so much of these stats, but regard how our home inspection company, habitation investigation, does things. We did meet with an agent recently just to go over some of the things that we do to help real estate agents close more deals and and themselves. We do a lot of things that apparently it's not very well known. But get ahold of us, we'll glad to meet you at your office or a coffee shop. Thank you everybody. All right, bye-bye.

Speaker 1: 19:42

You've been listening to the standing out in Ohio podcast. Be sure to subscribe on Spotify or Google podcast to get new, fresh episodes. For more, please follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook, or visit the website of the best Ohio home inspection company at homeinspectionsinohiocom or jimtroffcom. That's J-I-M-T-R-O-T-H and click on podcast Until next time. Learn and go do stuff.