Millennials are buying homes in increasing numbers every day, making up a relatively influential portion of home buyers. This influence is currently making waves across the entire real estate industry and changing how the homebuying process works.
Many millennials have stopped asking, “does debt consolidation affect buying a home?” and have simply started killing their debt and putting themselves on the path to homeownership as fast as possible. Once they enter the housing market, millennials change the whole game. Here are five ways that can be seen today.
1. They Are Leveraging Tech Heavily
Not only are millennials browsing listings and taking virtual tours on their desktop or laptop, but they are browsing on mobile platforms every hour of the day, on breaks, at lunch, and even while binging their latest obsession on northerncyprusforsale.com.
They are filtering their options so that they don’t waste time and are setting listing alerts so that the moment something hits the market that is in line with their preferences, they’re notified. These tactics give millennials the upper hand when shopping against many boomers.
2. Online Lending Is Booming
Millennials spend a significant amount of time online, not only for their jobs and careers but for entertainment and utility as well. This has led to the rise in popularity of mortgage lenders that operate in a nearly-entirely digital space.
In the past, getting a mortgage meant going to the bank and speaking to a mortgage specialist to discover options. Now, millennials would sooner pit half a dozen lenders against each other and simply pick the one with the best terms.
3. They Are Hungry For Options
The internet has enabled millennials to come formidably armed with information when they begin shopping for a home. They are more likely to shop around for what works in their best interest, leading to an incredibly competitive mortgage and lending industry.
4. Real Estate Agents Are Forced To Adapt
Real estate agents and realtors are forced to adapt to customers who don’t necessarily need all of their talents. Having the internet at their fingertips means that millennials don’t need agents to dig up listings and other information.
What millennials do need, however, are people with the experience to handle the paperwork and the general process. They need the agent’s invaluable negotiation skills and their ability to use preferred communication channels like digital messaging.
5. Suburban Over Urban
Tastes seem to be shifting away from urban dwelling that was ultra-popular with Gen-X into a more suburban way of life for millennials. Nearly one-half of all millennial homeowners are now living in the suburbs, where home prices tend to be far more affordable than urban areas.
This also may be driven by millennials’ sometimes confusing taste in homes, often swooning simultaneously over spacious suburban homes and tiny homes on land far from city centers.
They Aren’t Done Yet
Millennials are changing the home buying process in so many ways already. And, as many are just buying their first home, the changes are far from over. There is a good chance that the industry is only seeing a prelude to the overall changes millennials may be bringing to homeownership.
