Data-Driven Real Estate: Targeting Your Ideal Clients

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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.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast,
where we discuss topics,upcoming events, news and
predictions with real estateprofessionals and entrepreneurs.
Listen and learn what makestheir companies and themselves
stand out and gain advantagesover the competition and gain
market share.
Subscribe for the latest newsand discussion on what it takes

(00:23):
to stand out from the crowd.
Now here's your host, jim.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hey everybody.
This is Jim with Standing Outand how Podcast.
Laura is watching a movie withMegan, so I'm going to do this
one by myself.
She's enjoying a littledaughter-mother time together,
so that's all well and good.
What I'm going to do.
I got a, I guess, informationand it's highlights from the

(00:54):
profile of homebuyers andsellers.
It's called the NationalAssociation of Realtors.
I'll go over some data withthat and hopefully this stuff
will be good information for youto help you in your sales and
your marketing.
But first let's listen to this.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Habitation investigation is the way to go
for a home inspection in Ohio.
Trusted licensed homeinspectors for your needs, from
radon to mold to warranties fora great home inspection, you
really can't go wrong.
Visit home inspections inohiocom all right, everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
So data is important.
You need to know if what you'redoing is effective or not,
because it's terrible to spend alot of time doing some kind of
marketing effort and then youlater on find out it didn't work
.
You need to know fairly quickly.

(01:57):
That way you, if it's working,great, maybe pump more time,
money and effort into it.
If it's not working, then yougo all right, I'm going to
allocate my time and energy andmoney to another marketing task
or event.
So I'm going to go through somedata.
Hope this stuff is good for you.

(02:18):
Now, first-time buyers thiscompared to you know what?
Like 2024.
First-time buyer decreased to24 percent of the market share.
It was 32 percent the previousyear.
So this past year was thelowest share market share
first-time buyers since uh narbegan collecting this data 1981,

(02:43):
1981.
Now the median first-time buyerage increased to 38 years old
and it was 35 years from theprevious year.
Also, the typical repeat buyerage increased to 61, when it was
58 the year before that.
73% of recent buyers did nothave a child under 18 in their

(03:10):
house.
This is the highest percentagerecorded.
On that, 62% of the buyers weremarried couples, 20% were
single females, 8% were singlemales and then 60% were
unmarried couples.
So going just this, you wouldprobably do well.

(03:33):
If you want to work forfirst-time homebuyers, look for
somebody around the age of 38and married, or if you're
recently married, that would begood as well.
Finds most up down here Since1981, yeah, it's just generally

(03:56):
trending up.
In 1981, the average age was 36for the repeat buyers.
Now it is 61, so that isdefinitely creeping up there for

(04:17):
for sure.
All buyers is creeping upstarted 31.
Look at those 29 for first timebuyers back in 1981.
So so yeah, people are waitingto buy a house.
It could be because the cost ofhouses have gone up so much.
Let me look at some other datahere.
85% of buyers last year boughta previously owned house.

(04:41):
Recent buyers who purchased newhomes brand new homes were
looking to avoid renovation andproblems with plumbing or
electricity, and that was at 42%.
That's why they bought apreviously owned house.
Detached single-family homes isby far the most common home

(05:03):
type for buyers, at 75%.
The median distance between thehome that the recent buyers
purchased and the home theymoved from was 20 miles, and
that is down from 2022, where itwas 15 miles.
In 2022, that could be the timewhere people are really wanting

(05:28):
to get out of the city and getto the countryside and they're
willing to drive farther awayfor that.
Overall, buyers are expected tolive in their home for a median
time of 15 years.
25% of buyers said they werenever moving out.

(05:57):
Now, regarding the home searchprocess in 2024, the home buying
process for many it startedonline.
43% of buyers indicated thattheir first step was to look for
properties on the internet.
86% of all buyers utilized areal estate agent.

(06:20):
86% of all buyers utilize areal estate agent.
Buyers spent a medium of 10weeks searching for a home in
2024.
Typically, they looked at sevenhomes and two of those homes
were only viewed online.
Of those homes were only viewedonline.

(06:46):
Later on, they say all homebuyers use the internet to
search for a home.
The most valuable content onwebsites were photos.
41% said that was the mostvaluable content they could find
on the internet when lookingfor a house.
On the internet, when lookingfor a house, detailed
information on the property was39% and floor plans were 31%.
So I know when we do homeinspections me personally I know

(07:09):
all the inspectors that we havethey do it as well.
When they're getting ready togo to a house the day before,
typically they are going to goonline and look at pictures of
the house because they know whatthey want to know what to
expect.
And when I click online to alisting and I see there's 81

(07:31):
photos of the house, that givesme a good feeling like, hey,
this house is well taken care ofand they are proud of it.
This house is well taken careof and they are proud of it.
When I go see a listing andthere's like three photos, that
doesn't give a whole lot ofconfidence that the house is
well taken care of.
So having a lot of photosdefinitely gives a boost in

(07:55):
confidence to the viewer thatthe house is going to be in good
shape, that the house is goingto be in good shape.
Home buyers primarily soughthelp from an agent or broker in
finding the right home topurchase 49% reported that and
negotiating the terms of thesale 14%.
40% of the buyers found theiragent through a friend, neighbor

(08:17):
or relative and that trend isreally amongst first-time
homebuyers 51% relied on that.
So make certain you keep intouch with your friends,
relatives, past clients.
Remind them that what you dofor a living is you sell real

(08:39):
estate, and most buyersinterviewed only one agent
before making their decision.
That was true for 77% of repeatbuyers and 67% of first-time
buyers, and 88% of buyers woulduse their agent again or

(09:02):
recommend them to others.
That is crazy that theyinterviewed only one agent,
which tells me you need to befound first on the internet or
you just need to be out there,so you are the first agent they

(09:23):
come across.
74% of the buyer financed theirhome, decreased by 80% the year
before.
This is an all-time high.
Last year, 26 of home buyerspaid cash for the home, 52% for

(09:46):
some buyers use a conventionalloan to finance their home, 29%
use FHA, 9% use a VA loan, 79%reported that they believe
buying the home is a goodinvestment and of those 39%, it

(10:07):
was better than owning stocks.
Depending upon the age, thewhole stock market crashed.
What was that?
2008, 2009?
If you were a teenager then, ormaybe a little bit, yeah,
probably a teenager, maybe alittle, a little younger than
that you, that's all.
You heard that a lot stockscrashing, so you would be

(10:30):
naturally a little scared ofstocks.
Now, if you do listings, thetypical age typical age of a
home seller was 63 last year andthat's the highest record so
far of sellers.
The median age of years aseller owns their home was 10

(10:50):
years, which is steady.
I think that was the samenumber from the year before.
Using those two data points, ifyou could find, and there's
going to be some variations inthis course.
But if you could market to63-year-olds that own their

(11:12):
house for 10 years, you wouldhave a better than average shot
of getting the listing on thosehomes.
And here's a stat 50% of sellersuse the same real estate agent
to represent them when theypurchase or sell their home, and

(11:34):
that number jumped to 71% forsellers within 10 miles of their
home purchase.
10 miles is not that far, so ifyou're working with somebody
who's going to sell and buy ahouse, let them know you travel

(11:56):
well beyond 10 miles.
That way it expands your reach.
You can get more stuff that way.
The real estate agentreputation remains the most
important factor when sellersselect an agent to sell their
home, and an agent'strustworthiness and honesty.

(12:16):
All right, trustworthiness andhonesty rate at 21% as being the
most important.
The reputation was 35%.
That seems odd to me.
I would have placed the I wouldhave voted more for the

(12:40):
trustworthiness and honestyabove, but that's what people
are doing.
That's what the data says.
All right, here's for sale byowners Nobody's favorite really.
90% of the sellers sold withassistance of a real estate
agent, up from 89% the yearbefore, and only 6% were FSBO

(13:05):
sales, which is a historical low.
For 38% of all Fizbo sellers.
The main reason to sell Fizbowas because they sold to a
relative, friend or neighbor, sothere's a higher level of trust

(13:25):
between the buyer and seller ofthose.
Fizbo's typically sell for lessthan the selling price of other
homes.
Fizbo's homes sold for medianprice of $380,000 in 2023, which

(13:46):
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 differencein the average sales price
between for sale by owner versusworking with a real estate
agent.

(14:09):
So, using that date, all thisinformation, you man, if you
know, when somebody's lived intheir house 10 years, that's the
average for the people in thecellar.
So 10 to 15 years.
Because nothing in the statssaid that they buyers expect to
be in their home for an average10 to 15 years.

(14:31):
Because nothing stats said thatthey buyers expect to be in
their home for an average of 15years.
Marketing to somebody between10 and 15 years might be a good
demographic to market to.
Now I pulled some other dataalso.

(14:53):
Let me pull that up.
Pulled up, used some AI.
Here they're talking about thetarget audience for marketing,
the millennials who they don'thave 25 to 43 years old.

(15:15):
This is the largest purchasinggroup 38%.
The Gen Xers, 44 to 58, were24% of all buyers and then baby
boomers, who they had at 59 to77, were 24% of all buyers and
then baby boomers, where theyhad a 59% to 77%, were 31%
combined.
Because of the age of themillennials, which is the

(15:38):
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 likebroadcast, for if you go for the

(16:00):
older people, you should dothat.
But for content marketing, blogposts, videos, videos,
infographics on topics such asfirst-time buyer guides,
understanding mortgages, downpayments and closing costs,
because a lot of people do notunderstand those feature
spotlights, benefits ofenergy-efficient homes, smart

(16:22):
technology and modern kitchens,marketing trends, smaller homes,
because there was one otherthing the size of the house
desire actually went down alittle bit, not a significant
change in size, but people arelooking for smaller, slightly
smaller homes than it did inrecent years.

(16:43):
It was also mentioned to offervirtual tours.
That way the buyers, especiallymillennials, they can view the
properties remotely becausemajority of the home searches

(17:04):
start online.
I think they almost all havesome online component to them.
Lots of pictures yeah, thedesired home size decreased from
2,260 square feet in 2003 tonow 2,067 feet in 2023.

(17:32):
Some special features desiredand this is probably big with
the millennials is home office,energy efficiency, some smart
home technology such as securitycameras, programmable
thermostats, video doorbells,and then kitchen with an island.

(17:52):
Modern kitchen with an islandwas a 60% priority.
Some people really like theirwalk-in pantries, but kitchen
with an island big and thenmulti-zone HVAC systems, mainly
for the energy savings.
So I hope this information wasactually helpful and it's just
not a bunch of numbers coming atyou.

(18:16):
But I would use some of thesestats and I'll put the stats in
the link to the stats in theshow note.
But I would look at the statsand go who matches the typical
buyer?
And it's going to be themillennial.
I would target them and if it'sa first-time buyer, you do one

(18:43):
thing.
If it's an old, it's looking.
Somebody's already bought ahouse and you want to do
listings.
Man, they'd live in the house10 to 15 years Because on
average they stay there in 10years, but some of the things.
They plan on 15, but somewherebetween that 10 and 15, that's
when they move.
So I would use that information.
That's about it.

(19:06):
If you have any questions, givea call.
Not so much of these stats, butregard how our home inspection
company, habitationinvestigation, does things.
We did meet with an agentrecently just to go over some of
the things that we do to helpreal estate agents close more
deals and and themselves.

(19:27):
We do a lot of things thatapparently it's not very well
known.
But get ahold of us, we'll gladto 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
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For more, please follow us onInstagram, twitter and Facebook,
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(20:03):
That's J-I-M-T-R-O-T-H andclick on podcast Until next time
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Learn and go do stuff.