Millennial Buyers: What do They Want?

It used to be that home buyers wanted the ‘most’ house for the money that they could possibly afford. To many, that meant purchasing the largest home on the biggest lot they were able to reasonably pay for and live in, regardless of the overall condition. The thought process was that, as homeowners, they would fix up their homes over time to create their ideal living space. We hate to burst your bubble but those days are gone.

Instead of looking at their maximum budgets and searching for homes up to, and slightly over, that range of list price, today’s Millennial buyers (which make up a majority of the marketplace) are going well below what they can ‘afford’ on paper. Why? Well, there are several reasons which may surprise you.

Firstly, Millennial buyers are savvier than ever, and all the information they need is at their fingertips. They’ve scoured the internet looking at properties before they ever set up an in-person showing or attend an Open House.

All this online browsing that buyers are doing means that as a seller, your home’s photos better be 100% on-point. That HGTV ‘curb appeal’ is a real thing, and it can be a real killer if you don’t have it. Your pictures set the tone. Even if you don’t have everything that buyers are seeking you have to put your home’s best foot forward with photography. It speaks volumes to the perceived motivation and rationale of sellers in the minds of buyers - they interpret poor photos and outdated homes as an indication that sellers aren’t motivated to sell. Or that they’re not reasonable & realistic when it comes to what it will take to sell.

Between their own online perusal of homes and the plethora of home-selling apps, websites, and television programs out there, today’s Millennial consumers truly do know - more than any generation before them - what their local markets are like. Now, that doesn’t mean we’d go so far as to call them experts, but they do understand when a house is priced too high for what it is. Educating the buyers on the rest is where their agents come in.

Ultimately these young buyers are more about the aesthetic and ‘feel’ of a home as opposed to previous generations who favored larger, more traditional layouts and the largest footprints they could afford. These consumers don’t want giant fixer-uppers - they want the work already done for them so they just have to move in. They would rather have a smaller home that looks ideal in their minds than a larger property that needs updating. Some might say that all of our technological advancement has taken away the ability for Millennials to imagine the potential and possibilities for a property, but I digress.

On the other hand, the younger folks buying homes will consider outdated properties if there are other factors that attract them, such as location and convenience. In order for Millennial buyers to purchase ‘fixer-upper’ type houses, they will typically look far below their all-in budgets. Expect to see consumers spending upwards of $100,000 on renovations and upgrades in a property if they do go with one that needs work. These buyers are willing to invest deeply into something to make it look how they want if the value is there in terms of location and other amenities.

Another fact that may come as no surprise is that these buyers don’t want to deal with older systems & mechanical features in their homes, either. Gone are the buyers who understood that just because something was older didn’t mean it wasn’t serviceable. Now they want new, new, new. Luckily for sellers, new doesn’t have to mean top-of-the-line. Before you go replacing your entire HVAC system make sure to talk to a real estate agent who can guide you through what you need to do.

And finally, the other major factor that Millennial buyers consider heavily when deciding on a home to purchase: property taxes. They just cannot afford the sky-high property taxes, nor do they want to. This is another reason why prices are being driven down by today’s consumers in the real estate market. A large pool of buyers is out there in the marketplace, and many have quite a bit of spending power. The trouble is that when they look at the numbers as far as monthly expenses of mortgage and insurance and then add in property taxes, they get sticker shock. For them, they recognize that being in the price point that they can afford comfortably means adjusting down in relation to the amount of property taxes. When the cost for taxes can sometimes double a monthly payment for a buyer then that’s a big consideration they make in purchasing a property.

While the landscape of the real estate market has certainly changed from 20+ years ago, it doesn’t mean that as a seller you cannot be successful in selling your home for the best price the market will bear in the shortest possible amount of time for your area. What potential home sellers need to know is that they will be best served by listening to the advice of an experienced, qualified real estate agent who is an expert in the local market in which they live.

The Spaniak Team is led by Team Leader, Kati Spaniak. The Spaniak Team has sold over 400 homes and $240 million in volume. They are consistently one of the top teams in both Northbrook and on the North Shore. http://www.spaniakteam.com or info@spaniakteam.com or 847-379-8813 for more information.

This post is an advertorial piece contributed by a Patch Community Partner, a local sponsor. The views expressed in this post are the author's own.

For more about Community Partner, click here.