Listen to many journalists and, if you’re a millennial, you quickly adopt the notion that it’s useless to harbor even a glimmer of hope about homeownership.
“For most millennials I know, the American dream of homeownership doesn’t just feel far away, but impossible,” laments Buzz Feed news reporter Anne Helen Petersen.
Then, she lets loose with both barrels: “Especially if you live in an urban area, if your own parents didn’t own a home, if you’re saddled with student debt . . .”
At least in the eyes of this reporter, owning a home as a millennial is nigh impossible.
Maybe she doesn’t know that there are down payment assistance programs galore, that mortgage rates are at rock bottom right now and that, in many urban as well as suburban areas, trading a rent payment for a house payment will ease the monthly bill burden while they build wealth.
By the way, when we refer to millennial real estate leads, we use the Center for Generational Kinetics’ (CGK) birthdates of 1977 through 1995.
Besides, millennials are buying homes
Petersen cites a 2015 statistic to back up her claim that millennials aren’t buying homes. At that time, “only” 37 percent of them were homeowners.
That’s nearly 40 percent, which isn’t shabby for the youngest generation in the housing market
In 2018, that statistic increased to 47 percent for homebuyers between the ages of 28 and 31 and from 46 to 57 percent for millennials age 32 and older, according to Jacob Gaffney, former editor-in-chief at HousingWire.com.
While Gaffney says that it “appears that much of the growth in homeownership seems to be coming from renters who are becoming homebuyers,” it’s also obvious that the generation is splitting in two (younger millennials and older millennials) and that it’s the elders who are driving the growth.
First step: Stop listening to journalists
I never thought I’d see the day when those words would leave my fingertips. From delivering the “hard news” to updating the housing market, something has gone haywire with journalism.
And, with “most U.S. adults” telling a Columbia Journalism Review survey that they “personally have lost trust in the news media,” I guess I’m not alone.
In all fairness, much of what we read online isn’t written by true journalists, but by so-called “citizen journalists,” from varied backgrounds, such as holding a degree in media studies in the case of Petersen.
That doesn’t change the fact, though, that if it’s written on the INTERNET, it must be true, right?
Just remember, “if it bleeds, it ledes” is never truer than it is today, in 2019, and the doom and gloomers and housing market naysayers are often just downright wrong.
Take the second step: Shrink your target millennial real estate leads
If you’ve been “targeting millennials” in your real estate marketing, it’s time to narrow that niche. As mentioned earlier, the 83 million members are diverging, at least when it comes to finances.
“We discovered Millennials are splitting into two generations. Economically, that is,” says the folks at CGK.
Younger millennials, those under age 30 right now, were fortunate to have entered the workforce after the Great Recession, when wages were on the rise and the economy was healing.
Not so with the elders in the cohort (those age 30 and older). Many are still recovering from the devastating economics of the recession, trying to balance low wages with student loan payments and stuff like, well, feeding themselves.
Because of this, they bloomed into adulthood later than previous generations, at least when it came to marriage, having kids and buying homes.
However, Ellie Mae’s Millennial tracker pinpoints the average age of a millennial homebuyer over the past few months at 30.4 years old, placing that average buyer squarely in the “older” millennial group.
This average loan amount for this group was $195,924, with the majority obtaining a conventional loan (fewer than one-fourth went with an FHA product).
Our takeaway from the Ellie Mae report is that the smart agent will target a slightly older age group, those 36 years and older. They are buying more expensive homes ($322,185 appraised value, on average.)
If millennial real estate leads are your target market, you owe it to yourself to follow the Ellie Mae tracker. Be aware, however, that the birthdates they use for the generation are wrong.
And just how am I supposed to do this?
Think about the younger/older millennial real estate leads in terms of “key life events,” according to the pros at CGK.
Large corporations appeal to generations via the music the cohort listened to growing up. For instance, younger millennials grew up listening to Beyonce, Black Eyed Peas and Lady Gaga.
Older millennial real estate leads trace their favorite songs back to Sinead O’Connor, Maria Carey and MC Hammer.
Older millennials remember when Nelson Mandella was freed, the Gulf War began, OJ Simpson went on trial and the tragic events of 2011.
The news stories that most effected younger millennial real estate leads include the Charleston church shooting, the country-wide legalization of same-sex marriage and the historic 2008 presidential election.
What this shows you is the very large chasm between the oldsters (not that late 30s and early 40s is in any way old) and the youngsters and the different ways they should be approached.
This divergence is the most important criterion when considering how to appeal to older millennials. Stop thinking about them the way the media portrays them. They aren’t all kids (the oldest turn 42 this year) and they aren’t all broke.
And they are buying homes.
Your website gets more leads and listings when you make these simple changes
How do you establish trust with your audience? In this video, we explore how to help your audience trust you: