It’s that time of month again – time to dig through some May real estate news headlines. Here’s some of the biggest shake-ups that happened in the market this month
Time to comb through your CRM
Remember those old school postcards and flyers agents used to send, begging for listings?
“We need houses to sell!”
Dig them out, comb through your CRM for folks who own entry-level homes and beg for their listings.
“U.S. home sales fell for a second straight month in April, weighed down by a chronic shortage of more affordable houses,” according to Lucia Mutikani at Reuters.com.
Apparently, there is strong demand for homes at the entry-level price point and, with shrinking mortgage rates, low unemployment and rising incomes, now truly is “the best time to sell.”
Listing agents who take the time to put together compelling marketing pieces, proving to these homeowners how much equity they have, how now is the best time to take that equity and move up to a larger home, etc. will be the winners here.
May real estate news – A wave of Millennials?
“Nearly 45 million Americans will reach the general age of first-time homebuyers in the next 10 years,” according to Emma Newburger at CNBC.com.
And, at least one home builder’s representative has already translated that fact into a “wave of millennial homebuyers” entering the market over the next 10 years.
Reaching the age at which people typically buy their first home doesn’t necessarily mean that they will or can buy homes.
In fact, with starter home prices out of their reach as they pay off student loan debt, we think the builder’s rep is a bit premature in her prognostication.
Jessica Guerin over at HousingWire.com agrees. “That wave of Millennial homebuyers may never come crashing,” she says. “Instead, it could end up being little more than a ripple.”
Guerin refers to a Wall Street Journal piece that claims that Millennials, age 24 to 42 in 2019, don’t think owning a home is that big of a deal, in direct opposition to how their parents felt at that age.
Where the Wall Street Journal’s Justin Lahart got that idea, however, is a mystery. Studies throughout 2018 showed that a big chunk of the generation thinks that buying a house is a good investment.
“Our research showed that a majority of millennials would prefer owning to renting,” according to NerdWallet.com’s Kamran Rosen. In fact, Rosen says that their research found that Millennials “look upon owning a home just as favorably as previous generations.”
They aren’t buying because they don’t think they can afford to. In fact, the Nerd Wallet study found that most of what they believe about why they can’t buy a home is wrong:
- Insufficient credit score or history
- Affording the down payment or closing costs
- Insufficient income for monthly payments
- Too much existing debt
Our advice to buyers’ agents longing to work with these first-time buyers is to dispute each of those claims in marketing pieces targeted at tenants. For tips, check out “Need New Clients? Try Tenant Real Estate Leads.”
May real estate news – Gen X and their bad credit scores
We can’t leave Gen X out of our generational conversation. According to a LendingTree.com report, it’s Gen X (age 43 to 54) who have credit challenges. They have the biggest auto loan burden and the largest credit card debt of any of the other generations.
With an average credit score of 653 (considered “fair”), they and Millennials pay more for credit. And, Gen Xers know this.
Want to win their move-up business? Show them how to raise their credit scores.
Are you still over-promoting yourself?
Quit it.
“Don’t come off like a used car salesman. I had to sell a house recently and was given a referral to a highly rated real estate agent, but talking to him was a non-stop sales pitch. I chose someone else,” says a response to a RealEstate.com Facebook post about how agents can make the transaction better.
Another person responded that she was referred to a “guy in his 20s” by her relocation company. “His sales pitch was so corny that I literally had to stop myself from laughing,” she responded. “We chose a different realtor, a woman in her 50s who came prepared and didn’t brag on herself incessantly.”
“I refuse to work with bombastic egos,” claimed another.
Instead of the tired sales pitch, the endless explanations of why you’re so great, consider some of these qualities that respondents said they long for in an agent:
- “Listen to what the client is telling you. I had a set budget and had to fire 3 realtors who seemed to think they could cajole or browbeat me into buying a house that was out of my price range.”
- “Answer the damn phone”
- Have the guts to tell a buyer when a house isn’t right for them and why. “We were counting on their experience,” claims a disappointed homebuyer.
- Preview the homes you’re going to show your buyers “Come prepared,” knowing everything there is to know about the homes you’re showing, said another.
53 ways to generate more leads with one tip that will blow your mind
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