[MARKET/TREND]: Forget About Millennials, Gen Z is Buying Homes

Gen Z now makes up 26% of the population and they were born from ~1996 to 2015. As opposed to Millennials' Gen Z is pragmatist, hard-working, and mindful of the future.

Gen Z is the first truly digital generation, they grew up with iPhone but they are more optimistic rather than the “innocence lost” mentality of Millennials.

For as long as I can remember, the one thing we heard about millennials was that they would rather rent than actually buy their own home because they didn’t want to be tied down by a mortgage.

Nevertheless, millennials officially entered the housing market, as a matter of fact, last year millennials were responsible for more new mortgages than any other previous generation.

Real estate professionals struggling to engage with millennials, simply missed the “people first” train. It means that your “superb customer experience” you have been advertising online probably isn’t in the eye of the millennial buyer who accounted for nearly 50% of all transactions just in the past year (2018).

Millennials have been shouting but real estate agents weren’t listening. And now that Millennials are done waiting on real estate agents to improve their responsiveness the focus shifts to what’s next. So ready or not, here comes Gen Z and the only key through their Heart is through Personalization.

Gen Z is a different kind of beast, they want real estate agents to pay attention at their needs down to the smallest details, Gen Z wants to know who they’re, they expect you, the agent to master the etiquette of customer engagement.

It’s a mistake to undervalue Gen Z, agents can no longer afford that. Gen Z is next, and there’s good news for real estate professionals because home buying among Gen Z is skyrocketing. Gen Z consumers ranked as those born in 1995 and after, who took out a mortgage more than doubled in just one year.

More than 10 million Gen Z’ers were carrying a credit balance in the second quarter of 2019. That’s a significant increase of three million from 2018. We know today that more than 150,000 Gen Z had a mortgage in Q2 of 2018, a figure that jumped to 319,000 in the second quarter of 2019.

But here’s the good news for agents everywhere, Innovators, mavericks, call them what you will…had the courage to look at the industry in a new way.

Agents must no longer see leads but people, they must deliver outcomes, not tactics, they must foster and create relationships, not just transactions.

We call it the era of business intelligence.

Gen Z will account for a larger share of mortgage loan growth, however, as the median age of homebuyers is 28 years old and the oldest individuals in this generation are currently 24 years old.

Frontdoor is a technology-driven company tackling hard problems by developing relentlessly helpful and habit-forming products that realtors use to understand and be responsive to customers in seconds.👏 if you thought this post was helpful.