Millennials are officially home-buying age and, with the cash to back up their aspirations, they’re expecting to be swept off their feet.
So how to reach this new cohort of buyers who were responsible for more than a third of American home purchases between July 2015 and June 2016? Well, a great Instagram account is a good start, but it won’t seal the deal.
“Millennials need to see themselves living there,” New York broker Dolly Lenz told Mansion Global. “They’re more about an experience than anything else.”
These experiences could range from a showing featuring catering by a local coffeehouse or restaurant, an impromptu fashion show or a salon-style get-together populated by groups of presumably smart and cultured potential buyers.
“We try to bring together an interesting group of people, so that even if they don’t buy in this development, we’re in contact with them afterwards,” explained Ziegert Bank and Real Estate Consulting’s Dorothea Metasch.
Brokers should also be ready to get quizzed.
“Millennials ask amazing questions,” Kuper Sotheby’s International Realty’s Brennan Stravlo told Mansion Global. “They want to know everything about a property before they make a decision.”
But perhaps the best way to attract and win over millennial buyers is hiring millennials to make the sale, because as one broker, who is himself a millennial, said, “we understand their fears, their concerns and their must-haves.” [Mansion Global] — Erin Hudson