Catering to Gen Z and Millennial Homebuyers: Key Strategies
Born between 1981-1996, millennials make up the largest demographic in the country's workforce. Therefore, it's unsurprising that they're becoming a huge force in the real estate market.
As the first generation to become digitally aware, millennials have unique homeownership expectations, behaviors, and attitudes. Thus, understanding millennial buyers is crucial to succeeding as a real estate professional since experts predict they'll represent more than 50% of homebuyers by 2025.
To successfully market to millennials, you need to fully understand their lifestyles and preferences, considering they tend to prefer convenience over accessibility, prioritize environmentally friendly and sustainable products, and value experiences over possessions.
More so, millennials enjoy the digital experience and expect realtors to leverage technology to offer a personalized and seamless experience. Therefore, marketing to millennials successfully requires shifting from traditional real estate marketing strategies to digital tools to create authentic relationships with this new generation of homebuyers.
If you're a realtor looking to market to this unique demographic, we've outlined the top tips for marketing to millennial homebuyers and the factors they consider before buying a home. Read to the end!
Factors Millennials Consider When Buying a Home
According to Forbes, more than half of property purchases made in the United States were by millennials below 36 years. Therefore, if you're planning to market to this demographic, you need to be aware of millennial housing trends and factors they consider before buying a home, including:
Sustainable Homes
Millennials are socially conscious. Therefore, they value social responsibility, environmentalism, and sustainability, which are reflected in their choices of homes. As a real estate agent, offering sustainable living options and green homes will help you reach the millennials faster.
Reliance on Technology
Millennials rely on technology a lot because they grew up with online shopping, social media, and smartphones. Therefore, they've learned to access services and information from these channels easily.
A real estate professional looking to sell to them must make technology a vital part of their marketing approach.
Finance
Average millennials struggle with repaying student debt. Therefore, they consider their financial situation when shopping for a house.
The Great Recession had a significant impact on millennials. There's also the millennial housing crisis because home prices have gone through the roof, with first-time homebuyers paying 39% more than property prices in 2022, according to Redfin. Also, boomer houses don't appeal to the average millennial due to the high real estate taxes and too much maintenance and repairs.
Real estate agents considering marketing to millennials must factor in their financial limitations and offer affordable housing options in more affordable areas, such as small towns.
Uniqueness
Millennials prefer a customized, one-of-a-kind experience. They value uniqueness and authenticity and enjoy personalizing their homes to suit their unique styles and tastes. As a realtor, you'll successfully sell to millennials by offering tailored experiences to satisfy their housing needs.
Tips for Marketing to Millennials As a Realtor
Knowing how to market your real estate properties to millennials is more complex than selling to the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers.
Although millennials are on social media, they've become used to seeing marketing ads on their phones so much that they've developed a resistance to adverts.
Therefore, the key to selling to more millennials is to incorporate the best tactics and develop strategies to help you stand out from other realtors. The following are top tips for selling to younger buyers:
1. Millennial First-time buyers Will Need Expert Guidance
Since 43% of millennials are property buyers, you'll need to guide them throughout the home-buying process. Therefore, millennials value agents who expertly explain the whole first-time homeownership journey.
Millennial homebuyers don't work with a realtor simply because they were pitched to. The agent must be someone they vibe with, trust, and can relate to before they can entrust one of their biggest financial purchases. Hence, you need to show them you'll represent their best interest during negotiations.
The 2021 NAR Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends show that 98% of property buyers rated integrity and honesty as vital factors when hiring a realtor. Therefore, it's best to display dedication, honesty, and trustworthiness while assisting both younger and older millennials.
Reports show that 63% percent of homeowners found their houses online. Thus, you need to adjust your advertising strategies to cater to millennials, from your social media channels to your website.
2. Promote Your Property Listings on IG Reels or TikTok
Like Generation Z, millennials enjoy spending time on Instagram and TikTok. This unique generation made up about 43% of home buyers in 2022, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), and you can find most of them on Instagram.
Since 60% of Instagram users are mostly Gen Z and millennials, savvy agents must utilize social media to reach many millennials. However, having an Instagram presence isn't enough. Ensure to create quality content that resonates with both first-time and repeat buyers.
Instagram's visual nature makes it an excellent platform for creating lead-generating content and showcasing your expertise, helping you position yourself as an authority in your niche.
TikTok is another perfect social media platform popular among Gen Z and millennials. This video app helps you gain massive popularity amongst younger millennials.
TikTok is super easy to use. With your expertise and a few clicks, you can create content that establishes you as a top realtor in your location, showcase your knowledge, and generate leads.
3. Use Professional Photography to Show the Listing's Floor Plan and Features
One of the millennial trends to incorporate when trying to sell to more millennials is to use professional photography to display the property's features. Showing floor plans is crucial in real estate listings regardless of the housing market you operate.
The National Association of Agents Survey of Home Buyers and Sellers report shows that property buyers value floor plans as the third most crucial website feature after property details and photos.
Like previous generations, millennials prioritize home space and rooms. Therefore, realtors will need to showcase a customized, professional floor plan to appeal to a first-time homebuyer.
Home buyers want to discover the property's storage capacities, door and window placements, and space usability by viewing the floor plan. Professional photography helps them envision themselves inside the house.
4. Leverage the Latest Technologies Like Smartphone Apps, Virtual Reality, and Live Stream
Millennial homebuyers are skilled in using the latest technology. Therefore, it's best to adopt cutting-edge technologies when marketing your listings to young millennials.
Some of the latest technologies to utilize when marketing to the Gen Z and millennial generation are:
Smartphone Apps
You'll find many apps on Google Play and iOS that help realtors offer the best services to millennials. Apps like Zillow Premier App and RPR Mobile are a few examples.
You can also create your own app, tailored specifically to make home purchases easier for Gen Z and millennial homebuyers.
Virtual Reality (VR)
As one of the fastest-growing trends in today's housing market, most young people are familiar with 360-degree images, 3D virtual tours, and VR glasses, unlike the older generations.
Thus, realtors incorporating this trend will naturally appeal to younger millennials. The housing market is constantly fluctuating, and experts predict a housing crash this year, so staying ahead of tech trends will help you succeed when selling to millennials.
Live Stream
The live stream video is easy to make on popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and even YouTube. Businesses and people, including older millennial buyers, stream webinars, events, and games online, opening up an opportunity for savvy realtors to reach potential buyers in a personal way.
Unlike the other generations, younger millennials will appreciate seeing the listed property on live stream rather than traveling to see it. However, a personal visit can be planned after the live stream.
5. Millennials Prefer Affordable Homes With Modern Designs
Millennials don't want complicated designs and furniture, unlike the Baby Boomers and Gen X. Thus, it's best to keep the home design simple and use toned colors while staging the property.
However, the house design shouldn't be plain and too simple. Since this generation loves to use Google, a quick search will reveal houses with better designs in their preferred neighborhood.
Therefore, it's best to go with the trend. Most unmarried couples look for a simple, lively, and clean home, so it's best to update the home design to follow the trend before marketing it.
If the quality is acceptable with an affordable housing price, more interested persons will be reaching out for negotiations.
6. Partner With Mortgage Lenders to Offer Low-interest Home Loans
Most first-time buyers take home loans to facilitate their home purchase. The buyer will need to drop a down payment while the mortgage lender provides the rest of the money, including closing costs.
Loan payments will be spread over 15-30 years, depending on the amount and interest rate. If the down payment is small and the loan amount huge, the borrower might pay higher mortgage rates depending on factors like credit score and location.
Fortunately, buyers can access many home loan options, including government-backed loans like the USDA and FHA. However, some government-backed loans, like the USDA loan, are only available to people living in rural areas.
Sadly, most millennials can't afford loans with high mortgage rates due to their thin-income jobs. Therefore, agents should partner with lenders to offer millennials loans with favorable interest rates.
Once millennials are assured of low-interest loans and the option of paying equated monthly installments (EMIs) from their thin income, more millennials will be interested in becoming a homeowner.
7. Use a Texting Application
Most millennials prefer texting as the best way to communicate. Hence, realtors using a texting application to instantly send text messages containing property pictures and information to interested buyers will have more millennial customers.
Also, the text app can inform you when you have a new hot lead, making it a perfect lead-generation tool.
FAQs
Millennials prioritize sustainability when choosing a property to buy. Therefore, realtors should always highlight a property's sustainability features and incorporate environmentally-friendly practices into their marketing plans.
Millennials prefer a personalized experience from service providers, including realtors. You can achieve personalization by offering customized home searches based on their lifestyle and preferences, targeted email campaigns, and personalized housing recommendations.
Direct mail, print ads, and similar traditional marketing strategies are primarily ineffective when marketing to millennials because they respond more to digital advertising.
They often rely on social media recommendations and online reviews when making purchasing decisions. If you need help with online marketing, consider outsourcing your marketing to a leading digital marketing company like Ardor SEO.Conclusion
Millennials are people who fall in the 1981-1996 age group. Real estate brokers looking to succeed in the industry will need to learn how to sell effectively to this generation. Understanding millennials' unique expectations and preferences is essential to providing them with a personalized experience.
By prioritizing the use of digital tools, convenience, sustainability, and experiences, realtors can establish long-term relationships with millennials due to their impact on the US housing market.
Understanding the next generation of property buyers will help realtors stay ahead of the housing trends while providing exceptional service to meet millennials' desires and needs.
If you're one of the millennials entering the housing market, you already know a few things about selling to young buyers. However, it's best to listen to successful realtors who have hacked the process of marketing to millennials.
Icons of Real Estate podcast is a platform where these successful professionals share tips and tricks. Listen to valuable podcast episodes on their site to pick a few success tips to help you distinguish yourself as a real estate marketing expert.