Why Should Sellers Cater to Millennial Buyers?

According to Inc.com, 75 million of the people in the U.S. are millennials today. Of these 75 million millennials, 66% plan to purchase a home within the next 5-years. Right now, 34% of them are already homeowners, and may even be moving onto their second purchase in the coming years. People tend to cast millennials aside as this young, naive generation; however, while people have been busily pigeonholing the generation, millennials are now 19 to 34-years old. That’s right, a 34-year-old adult today is considered part of the millennial generation.

Millennial Characteristics

Millennials are the most educated generation in our country today, with 27% of them holding college degrees. As a result, this generation is characterized by buying a $250 pair of jeans after trying on 67 pairs through a variety of stores and shipped packages from Amazon.com. It’s a tedious generation. They know what they want, and home shopping is no different.

The research-driven culture is fueled by the availability of the Internet, which was accessible to the generation starting in their formative years. Everything they could ever want to know is right at their fingertips, and they are wholly aware of it.

However, that would leave you thinking that millennials will rely on apps for the home-buying process instead of calling a realtor. Like previous generations, millennials want realtor support, but they want it for a different reason.

Everything Must Be Perfect

Millennials expect perfection today. They want the perfect home that will look beautiful in Instagram photos and nicely house their growing number of dogs. They know that a realtor, an expert in the home selling and buying process in a given community, is their best bet for attaining this perfection by the end of the home selection process. 

Why Sellers Should Care

Millennials are the biggest portion of the first-time home buying market in the U.S. today. What they want to buy, and why they want to buy it needs to matter to sellers, or else their listing will be facing a steep uphill battle against the classic buyer today.

For instance, sellers should try and renovate the home to include as much natural lighting as possible. This light lends to pretty photography and an “organic” feeling that millennials want in their homes. Millennials also want a fenced in backyard for their dogs, and environmentally friendly tools, like solar-paneled rooftops, that make them feel like they’re doing their part to save the environment. 

While everyone was sleeping, millennials slowly became the most powerful bloc in the real estate market today. Sellers would be wise to cater to their wants and needs for selling properties in a reasonable and timely manner.