Buying a home comes down to lots of factors and conditions and depending on where your client lands on the generational spectrum, certain factors can tend to sway their opinion of home and change the course of your purchase. With real estate supply extremely limited, material prices soaring, and multiple generations vying for the right home, you may be asking yourself what the best approach for each generation is when it comes to listing, showing, and selling.
Today, we’ll explore some of the most influential factors of purchasing according to each generation by examining the Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials.
Price
The price of the home is naturally the most important factor to all three generations of buyers, but much like the stock market the threshold of risk for each one changes with age. For Baby Boomers looking to downsize or simply lower their expenses going into retirement, price is a much bigger issue. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Millennials are much riskier when it comes to purchasing a home that may stretch their family budgets.
67% of Baby Boomers in a recent survey indicated that price was an important factor when purchasing a home. Contrast that to Generation X (61%) and Millennials (48%) and you can see how age affects this part of the home-buying equation. It stands to reason that Baby Boomers have more at stake as many of them enter the twilight of their careers, face stretching out their retirement savings, and generally want to downsize from a home that’s too big for them. Millennials, on the other hand, have their entire lives ahead of them and are looking towards being able to pay down bigger home mortgages as their earnings increase over time.
Ready to Move-In
Beyond price, the factors that influence purchasing become pretty uniform across all generations. The second most cited factor affecting a home purchase is how move-in-ready a home is. Again, Baby Boomers lead the pack in identifying this as a factor with 36% responding that it was an important aspect of buying a home. 33% of Gen X buyers and 31% of Millennials thought the same way.
Again, we can see how Baby Boomers would want a home that is move-in-ready. After all, they’ve likely spent a good majority of their lives building their worlds, adjusting their homes, and making it just how they want it. It stands to reason that doing all of that in a new home would be much less desirable.
Neighborhood
The neighborhood the home is in was the 3rd most important factor or purchasing a home for the three generations surveyed overall; however, it was the second most important factor for Baby Boomers with 39% of respondents identifying it as an influential factor. We see once again that neighborhood influence is more universal across all generations with Gen X and Millennials chiming in at 33% and 31% respectively.
Other Factors of Purchasing to Consider
From those top three factors of purchasing we’ve identified, things progress slowly down the lists for each generation. The size of the home, proximity to work, quality of schools, and potential to resell were all neck-and-neck with each generation. Of those additional factors, Baby Boomers and Gen X prioritized the size of the home while Millennials prioritized proximity to work. Not surprisingly, Baby Boomers were least concerned about schools, and both Gen X and Millennials ranked resell value the lowest.
No matter who your client is or what they’re after in their new home, Tidewater Mortgage Services, Inc. can help find the right solution for them!
