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How Millennials and Home Buyers Use Mobile When Purchasing a Home

Image of a couple using a mobile device at a cafeWelcome to the First Part of our Three Part Series: 6 Key House Hunting Trends and Opportunities that Search Reveals.

What’s On Home Buyers’ Minds?

With the influx of social media marketing, SEO-friendly websites, and online competition now is the prime time for businesses, real estate consultants, and retailers to emerge as relevant. To emerge as relevant, however, they need to understand how home buyers think. What are they looking for? Has it changed? How do they find what they’re looking for?

Let’s look at YouTube and Google data for insights.

Google Searches

In the United States, Google searches for property listings peak in July. While the peak month for Google home searches is different in Australia, the underlying insights are much the same. It’s important to understand that when search peaks for properties for sale, those searchers won’t purchase a home right away.

According to an April 2014 Google Consumer Survey:
  • Half of people formally begin their home buying search 6-12 months in advance. Three-quarters start their formal search within one year of the date of purchase.
  • Two out of three people extensively researched real estate agents online prior to selecting an agent.

Home buying is a major life event, so it should not come as a shock that people devote a significant amount of time to research it.

Home Buying Happens Around Other Major Events

We know that home buying is a major life event; it also happens around other major life events. For example:

  • People searching for property listings for sale are also five times more likely to search for retirement planning, too.
  • They are four times as likely to search for child care.

In these moments of significant change, consumers’ shopping habits and loyalties will dramatically shift. They will buy things they have never before purchased, many of which they didn’t even know existed. Due to this, big decisions will trigger many smaller decisions for years to come, which is why not just real estate consultants should care about home buyers, but financial service providers, luxury retailers, and others should, too.

Millennials Are Looking to Buy Property (Finally!)

Millennials are known for being slow to enter the home buying market. Due to economic challenges, millennials moved back with their parents or lived with roommates. The recent data is optimistic, however:

  • 18-34 year olds were twice as likely to say yes to plans to purchase a home in the next year as 35-54 year olds were. (Google Consumer Survey, July 2014).
  • From May 2013 to July 2014 real estate web usage by millennials grew 30%. Mobile usage for the same group grew by 81% during that same time period, says Smoke of comScore Media Matrix data.
  • In July 2014, exactly half of all millennials viewed websites that were real estate related. 36% of millennials viewed real estate related websites or real estate applications.

Trends in web traffic reveal that mobile usage and real estate visits are increasing for millennials. Smoke states, “Looking at trends in web traffic, it is clear that mobile usage and real estate visits are increasing for millennials. It is likely that we are on the cusp of millennials starting to emerge from mom and dad’s basement.”

This demographic is more likely to use the internet, more specifically mobile, when searching for a property for sale. They also spend much longer researching before they make a purchase.

Buyers in General Using Mobile

In today’s mobile world, more home buyers use their smartphones throughout the process. In June 2014, 27% of home buying searches came from mobile phones – that increased 19% from June 2013.

Data revealed the following:

  • Most people use their smartphone or tablet to: search for property listings, learn more information about a home for sale, find directions, call or email an agent, and watch a video while hunting for a home (Google Consumer Survey, April 2014).
  • Home buying searches are highest on the weekends (Google data).
  • Desktop searches for open houses were unchanged year on year in 2014, while mobile searches grew by 36%.

It’s evident that home buyers can be reached through their mobile devices, including mobile videos and advertisements.

Second Part: What Search Reveals About the “Mobile Home” Movement and “Vintage” Interior Design Trend
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