REALTOR® Magazine-Daily News-Market Yourself to the Younger Generation

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Daily Real Estate News | May 21, 2007 | Market Yourself to the Younger Generation
WASHINGTON – If real estate professionals want to sell to the next generation of home buyers, they’ll need to look to social networking sites, blogs, online videos, and virtual communities, says real estate technology expert Saul Klein, E-PRO®, GRI.

“There’s a whole bunch of buyers coming up that do things in a different way, and you have to know how to communicate to them,” said Klein, president of San Diego-based InternetCrusade. “And why do you even need to market to the next generation? Because they’re going to have all the money.”

Klein spoke on Friday at NAR’s Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo.

Indeed, the younger generation is expected to inherit a huge amount of wealth in the coming years from their baby boomer parents, which will give them increasing buying power in the real estate market, NAR Senior Economist Lawrence Yun told attendees.

Already, the number of young home buyers is growing: the homeownership rate of the under-35 crowd has steadily increased to 43 percent from 37.5 percent in 1993.

Also, the number of single buyers continues to grow. In 2005, 21 percent of single home buyers were women, compared with 15 percent in 2001. Younger generations are also contributing to a rise in condo sales and downtown populations in large metro areas, Yun said.

How to Reach Gen Y

So how can you get younger buyers and sellers to use your services? First, understand how this generation uses technology, so you can use it for prospecting and networking, Klein said.

For example, you can reach them on their iPods by developing real estate podcasts or publish a blog to provide clients with real estate information. Be savvy with your marketing: instead of giving them refrigerator magnets, give them a USB flash drive.

Or, offer property listings or content via Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds — feeds that deliver syndicated content from various sites directly to subscribers’ desktops — and be able to respond to prospects in real-time through instant-messaging and text-messaging.

Other ways to use technology that Klein suggested:

Get on a social network. Social network environments, such as MySpace and Facebook , provide a venue for you to interact with the younger generation. Coupled with that, Klein emphasized how this generation wants to participate and collaborate online so expect popularity to grow in sites that offer them opportunities to provide feedback on neighborhoods, listings, and even rate real estate professionals. One site that already does this: Homethinking.com.

Show, don’t tell. Experiment with new ways to show-off listings and educate them about real estate. Consider posting videos of your real estate properties on such popular video sites as YouTube or displaying property photos on FlickR.

Go virtual. Second Life and There.com create virtual worlds where residents appear as a 3-D character — known as an “avatar” — to socialize, buy virtual land, and interact in virtual economies. The population of Second Life has taken off, doubling in size from 3 million to 6 million in just a few months. Coldwell Banker recently opened a virtual office in Second Life to market itself. Although the transactions on these sites are virtual, people pay real money to Second Life to own virtual land. For example, real estate professionals could buy a virtual island for $1,500, Klein said, and then use their virtual space to market their services and listings.

“Maybe you don’t use these sites, but how about if the people who buy houses from you do use it?” Klein said.

— By Melissa Dittmann Tracey for REALTOR® Magazine Online

Learn More: View Yun's presentation on "Marketing to Gen Next" at REALTOR.org.