Archive for Home Buyers

The Joys of Homeownership

November 1, 2011 / abarker / No comments

Homeownership has many financial advantages, but it also has emotional and psychological advantages. Owning a home can create a better quality of life, especially for those with families. Here are some details from a great article found in the Cornerstone Newsletter:

Many home buyers are drawn to homeownership for these warm and fuzzy reasons.

Owning a home allows you to put down roots, both figuratively and literally. On one hand you become part of a neighborhood and community. When you rent, neighbors come and go as quickly as leases renew. Homeowners, however, tend to stay put longer.

What does this mean for you? You can develop, many times, lifelong relationships. This also means your home will see you through many of life’s important milestones.

It makes sense. Many people enter the realm of homeownership as young couples looking to build a nest. They plan on starting their own family and need room to expand and grow. These family homes will see many firsts and will be the container of countless memories. Additionally, homeownership gives families more room to entertain and this means extended family will also share in building memories.

It’s not just young families, though, that seek homeownership. Families with teenagers seek larger homes to room their growing brood. Retiring adults may wish to start a new phase and new memories, seeking out warmer climates or smaller, more manageable homes.

These little moments are what life is all about. Memories from Christmas mornings and summer vacations will fill minds for years to come.

On the other hand you literally can put down roots by planting trees and shrubs! Renters are rarely afforded the luxury of gardening. In fact, digging up the landlord’s yard is frowned upon. As a homeowner you are able to create your own green oasis, including trees that will mature alongside your children and gardens that will feed your hungry pack.

There is a certain pride that comes with homeownership. This little piece of property and land is yours. There’s no one that can evict you or take it away. This security allows people to form deep attachments to both the land and home.

via Cornerstone Real Estate ‘s Real Estate Update.

Generation Y: Sales & Marketing: REALTOR Magazine

May 24, 2011 / abarker / No comments

When working real estate leads its important to understand the behavior of different demographics and generation, younger people want to communicate differently than people of older generations. If you can’t catch them on the phone, it might not be you, it’s them. Here is some great information on the youngest demographic of buyers according to Realtor.org

This generation, also referred to as Millennials, now numbers around 80 million U.S. residents. And many of them are just a few years away purchasing their first home. How can you position yourself as the real estate professional they want to work with?

They Want It All — Now

Austin, Texas-based Laura Duggan — an early adopter of texting — learned the value of communication while selling Jason Dorsey, 32, and his wife a home two years ago. Phone messages Duggan initially left for Dorsey were not immediately returned, losing valuable time in a market where hot deals on smaller-size homes are scooped up within days. Dashing off a text message, however, yielded a lightning-quick reply from Dorsey.

“They want to communicate differently than a lot of my other clients. Gen Y wants texts, not even e-mail,” says Duggan, broker-owner of West Austin Properties, who has 30 years of experience selling homes.

“Gen Y is about instant gratification: If we can’t see it on our phone, it doesn’t really exist,” explains Dorsey, who is a frequent keynote speaker on Generation Y. He’s consulted for companies like Kraft, GE, Frito-Lay, and McDonald’s. While Dorsey and his peers can easily navigate the Internet in search of data, they often don’t know how to make sense of it. Still, “it’s critical that REALTORS® position themselves to educate us and not treat us like children,” says Dorsey. “If we don’t feel like we can ask questions and be a part of the process, we’re not going to be interested.”

The Right Information

Real estate pros can help put information about a listing into context, such as how property taxes differ from a nearby city or interpreting neighborhood crime statistics, he says.

“This is a generation that takes advantage of information. They come in [to a home showing] knowing everything about the property,” says Nashville-based consultant Amy Lynch, who works with companies that want to motivate Generation Y.

via Generation Y: Sales & Marketing: REALTOR Magazine.

Home Buyers Today

May 24, 2011 / abarker / No comments

With modern society, social media, text messaging, instant communication, and the modern world, real estate buyers today are different than they were in the past.

New buyers today have a lot of fear about economic conditions and the housing market. They have seen and heard horror stories from people who have gone through foreclosure and who have watched net worth turn upside down and credit destroyed.

Some principles are universal, they will and have always stayed the same while other practices in working with real estate buyers need to adapt.

Realtors still need to engage their buyers. They still need to show them they care, and are working for them. This is a universal principle, it will always exist, it’s part of human nature.

According to the great real estate trainer Brian Buffini, Buying a home is a logical decision, but it is also an emotional decision. Good real estate agents need to help with the emotional appeal. Many buyers go about starting the home buying process the wrong way. They start out looking at homes that they have no business looking at. When these homes are too expensive, they are only disappointed with what they actually can afford.

One way to help avoid this huge disappointement is to get buyers to get prequalified for a mortgage loan before they ever start home shopping. This also saves Realtors lots of time when working with buyers. 14% of California Buyers get all the way to the closing table before the lender tells them that they can’t actually qualify for their home loan.

Home buyers have more knowledge than they did in the past, they have almost always looked at homes online before they ever talk to a Realtor. This doesn’t mean that they don’t need to be educated. Buyers still need to know the home buying process. They need to know how real estate agents work, otherwise their chances to stay loyal to you aren’t good. They need to know how the offer and negotiation work, they need to know what to do when handling objections.

Even people who have bought homes before still need to be educated. They may not really understand.

An important thing to help home buyers understand and get educated is to share with them the facts.

The average first time buyer lives in a home for just 4 years. The decision on buying a “starter home” shouldn’t be nearly as overwhelming as most people make it.

Mortgage interest rates right now are how low? We’re talking all time lows. For a 30 year period of time the average interest rate was 8.9%. From an affordability standpoint, for most buyers, the mortgage interest rate is a bigger factor than the price of the home. To most buyers, it is the monthly payment that matters more than the home’s price tag.

Buying a home is a process of elimination. It is narrowing down a huge list of potential and available homes to the very best home. Real estate agents want to get feedback from their buyers, to really understand what they like, and what will make a good fit for them and their needs. Brian Buffin thinks that getting property feedback is the best way to really connect with his buyers. The best connection, is that connection over properties.

While buyer behavior is different today, while real estate lead generation is different, some principles never change. Good real estate agents will understand these principles, and make their time productive and profitiable.

 

 

 

 

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