Baby Boomers

Unlock the Hidden Potential of the Baby Boomer Real Estate Market

Aug 23, 2023

We’ve mentioned recently, and you’ve no doubt seen it in your real estate practice, that baby boomers are large and in charge of the housing market.

“In 2023, baby boomers overtook millennials as the greatest percentage of homebuyers in the U.S., making up 39% of the market compared to 28% for millennials (and 24% for Gen X),” suggests Dawn Allcot at Nasdaq.com.

This cohort makes up the largest share of home sellers as well, setting up a scenario where a whole bunch of agents will have the opportunity to get two deals out of one client.

They win bidding wars

Listing agents know well how challenging it sometimes is to calm down the seller who is receiving multiple offers. It’s heady stuff to have a group of people vying for your home, and visions of “over-asking” often dance through their heads.

Counseling the seller to also compare the terms of each offer is a wise move. Is the proposed closing date most convenient for your seller? What about the amount of cash the buyer is willing to put into the deal?

“With all this in mind, new research from Realtor.com shows that baby boomers have the upper hand when it comes to sealing the deal on the next home of their dreams,” according to Allcot.

The ideal next home for the baby boomer

It’s easy to make assumptions about what type of home our aging population is seeking. And many of those assumptions are valid. One-story homes, for instance, are in great demand, as are homes with wide halls and doorways to accommodate a wheelchair in the future.

A few other items that are on the wish list of older clients include:

A walk-in shower
Lowered countertops
No stairs, inside or out
A home office for those who haven’t yet retired

Think they don’t want to sell? Think again

It’s common knowledge and a bone of contention for younger homebuyers that our older generation refuses to budge from their family home.

A 2021 AARP survey found that more than three-quarters of adults ages 50 and older want to stay in their current homes, also known as aging in place.

There’s a problem with that, however. “A significant majority of adults want to continue living in their homes as they age, but the unfortunate reality is that many homes and communities weren’t built to support that desire,” according to Rodney Harrell, AARP Vice President, Family, Home, and Community.

AARP finds in another study that “About half of adults say they’d consider leaving their home if it meant finding one that would help them age independently,” said Anna Deen at TheMessenger.com.

I smell an amazing real estate niche in there, don’t you?

As you tour new listings, pay attention to the layout of the home to determine if it’s move-in ready for a boomer who wants to age in place. Even homes that require minimum renovation are attractive to this generation, so don’t ignore those, either.

Then, do consider reaching out to the baby boomers in your CRM.

PLUS: When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazine

Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine with rich, full-color content and a sharp, professional aesthetic. It includes compelling, direct response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts and engaging lifestyle content. Send out Homes & Life Magazine in Just Minutes – No Minimums Required. Or we’ll ship it to you. Homes & Life Magazine is the ultimate “Coffee Table Lingerer”! …and it costs less than sending a greeting card! – Click Here

2. The Free 6-Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 6-Month Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do and when. Four key market segments include niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here

3. The Free Interactive 6-Month Real Estate Business Review

The Free Interactive 6-Month Real Estate Business Review allows you to enter your business goals for the remainder of the year and get a breakdown of how many prospects, listings, closing, and so on are needed to reach your goals. – Click Here

4. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Become-A-Listing-Legend-3D-Book-White-274x300.jpg

Ready to take a vertical leap in your real estate career? If you’re looking for inspiration…and the tools and methods to dominate a market and go to the top in real estate…you’ll find them in this free book. – Click Here

Is TikTok a Good Place for Real Estate Agents to Market for More Listings?

May 16, 2023

In real estate, as in other businesses, it’s important to remember that you need to know who your “audience” consists of if you ever hope to effectively target them with your marketing. Many agents target “anyone who is breathing,” and that’s understandable.

It was how they generated leads as a newbie. They had little other choice. But, think back to those days. That type of marketing is not only expensive but time-consuming as well.

As we grow into our business, we know better than to shoot arrows and hope something sticks. Target marketing is far saner and more efficient.

Who is your audience on social media? It depends a great deal on the platform, first. Some are chock-full of folks you should be reaching out to, while others simply waste time and effort.

It’s time to update our social media recommendations for real estate agents, and we begin with TikTok.

First, let’s nail down your target audience

While it was somewhat lucrative to target first-time buyers in the past, you may want to change your strategy this year. They made up only 26% of last year’s real estate consumers, which is a huge drop from the previous year’s 34%, according to the folks at the NAR.

With the country’s current wonky economy, don’t look for that number to improve this year.

If you plan on sticking with the first-timers, you’ll be targeting folks in their mid-to-late 30s (NAR calls the 36-year-old “The typical first-time buyer.”)

Repeat buyers are always worth an agent’s consideration because of the very real chance that they also have a home to sell. This target’s age is 59 years.

Your largest buyer pool will be the baby boomers, who comprise 39% of all buyers. Millennials have dropped to 28% of the pool.

Finally, if you’re after listings, stick with older Gen X folks and baby boomers. “The typical home seller was 60 years old,” according to the NAR.

When it comes to social media marketing, spend your time on platforms with the robust participation of baby boomers (folks age 59 to 77).

Does that include TikTok?

Not at all. Let’s take a look at who hangs out on TikTok.

According to the platform’s survey of its users:

80 million Americans are “active users” of TikTok.
The largest share of these users (60%) are age 16 to 24. “80% are between the ages 16-34.”
Although Gen X (age 47-58 in 2023) “is highly active on social media … less than 5% of them are on TikTok,” according to digital content provider Gitnux.com.
Baby boomers are almost invisible on the platform. Those who are age 55+ make up 5.1% of users. Throw in the next youngest demographic (age 45-54), and that number nudges up to about 13%, according to Oberlo.com.

Your TikTok takeaway

Unless you love hanging out there, we believe other platforms are far more worth your marketing time and effort (Facebook is one).

Wherever you decide to market on social media, remember that your post needs to be relevant to your target audience.

Check back soon when we look at Instagram and whether it’s worth your marketing time and energy.

PLUS: When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazine

2. The Free 12-Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do and when. Four key market segments include niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here

3. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan allows you to enter your business goals for this year and get a breakdown of how many prospects, listings, closing, and so on are needed to reach your goals. – Click Here

4. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

Three Ways to Endear Yourself to Your Clients and Stand Out From the Rest

May 19, 2022

A couple of years ago I watched an online video about things that buyers do that “Realtors dislike”.

The writer opens the video with this statement: “… there are things that buyers do that I absolutely hate.”

Yes, those are her clients and potential clients she is talking about.

To this day I still can’t quite wrap my head around why an agent would post something like this. Can you imagine the CEO of Olive Garden or JCPenney dissing his or her “bread and butter” in this manner?

Instead of bemoaning the things that real estate consumers do that drive agents nuts, why not think about what agents do that drives them nuts and vow to not be like those agents?

1. Work on your empathy

When you’re empathic, you have “… the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling,” according to Greater Good Magazine, published by the University of California at Berkeley.

If you feel yourself slipping into an empathy void, try to look at the situation from your client’s viewpoint. For example, the agent in the aforementioned video thought that her clients were being petty when they voiced displeasure about the color of the tile in the bathroom.

Take a deep breath and consider this:

These people are considering paying hundreds of thousands of dollars by going into decades of debt to purchase a home.
The down payment and closing costs alone most likely represent every penny they’ve been able to save for years.
Re-tiling a tub surround can cost up to $4,000 according to the pros at Angie’s List. Tiling a walk-in shower costs from $2,500 to $5,000, but “some companies charge up to $10,000.”

How long do you imagine they’ll have to save for that? Would you be willing to live with unpleasing aspects of a home for that long?

There ya go! That’s empathy at work.

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2. Avoid making excuses – for anything

This may sound rude, but it’s nevertheless true: Real estate clients, unless they’re family or friends, don’t care what is going on in your personal life. They only care about ONE THING: buying or selling a home.

It’s not their problem that an agent’s teenage son is acting up and she had to miss an appointment to deal with him.

The most unprofessional thing you can do is proffer a lame excuse for not following through on something you promised. If life happens (which it does) and you can’t perform, hire someone else who can. Pay another agent in your office to do it.

3. Become an excellent listener

In the digital age, the word “listening” encompasses both the spoken and written word. Nine times out of ten, not listening to a client will result in wasted time and frustration for you, your client, the listing agent, and the sellers.

Then there are the rest of the folks in the domino chain that might be affected, from the title rep to the lender to the inspector.

Slow down, and take your time when speaking with or reading texts or emails from a client.

If you listen to your client, with empathy, if you always show up and refuse to make excuses, you’ll have a client for life.

And they will be happy to share your name with others.

PLUS: When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazine

Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine, with rich, full-color content, and a sharp, professional esthetic. It includes compelling, direct response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts, combined with engaging lifestyle content. Send out Homes & Life Magazine in Just Minutes – No Minimums Required. Or we’ll ship it to you.

Homes & Life Magazine is the ultimate “Coffee Table Lingerer”! …and, it costs less than sending a greeting card! – Click Here

2. The Free 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month-Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do when. Four key market segments are included, niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here

3. The BusinessBase, SOI building system

The most effective thing you can do to build a real estate business is to become more visible, more likable, and remembered more often. The BusinessBASE™ not only checks all of these boxes, but it is a business building machine. In two easy steps, you can begin to build a robust sphere of influence that will provide you a lifetime of repeat business and referrals. – Click Here

4. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

5. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

6. The Take a Listing Today Podcast

Watch the ProspectsPLUS!, Take a Listing Today Podcast for actionable content to help you get more listings. – Click Here

Instill Calm in Your Prospective Clients Instead of Fear

Jan 28, 2022

If only I had a dollar for every online article and blog post I’ve read about home buying and how “difficult”, “scary” and “challenging” it is.

“Buying a house is exciting, intimidating, and, honestly, a bit complicated,” says one agent.

“The first time you undertake a home purchase, the complexity of the transaction can be particularly frustrating because there are a number of unknown rules and procedures that you are generally forced to learn through ‘the school of hard knocks,’” says another.

The combination of highfalutin’ words and the imagery of the “school of hard knocks” is enough to scare any real estate consumer into staying put.

My initial reaction to these fear-inducing blog posts and articles is, “If the process is this difficult, scary, or complex, it may be time to find another agent.”

Be the expert who soothes their fears

If clients aren’t completely familiar with the buying/selling process going into it, the best agents counsel them so that they learn and ultimately feel more comfortable.

Unfortunately, there are agents that think scaring potential homebuyers about the complexities of real estate is a way to win their business.

The first quote above is from a national real estate company’s website. It’s fine to caution folks that buying a home because it’s an unfamiliar process, might be challenging. However, a better statement would be to mention that it won’t be challenging if they work with you.

Because you, the superhero of the real estate world, will teach them what they need to know and be with them every step of the way.

You are an awesome communicator who wouldn’t dream of allowing your client to enter into the process without being armed with all the information he or she needs.

You are the expert and are happy to share your expertise with your clients. Want proof, you might ask? “Here’s my testimonials,” (list of former clients saying how amazing you are and how you explained everything and made the process so easy).

Think what a breath of fresh air your website, blog posts, and other marketing materials will be to a consumer who has surfed all the negative and scary agents’ sites.

When they land on your website and read words of encouragement and simplicity they will breathe a sigh of relief.

Looking for the right words to instill confidence? How about:

“Buying (or selling) a home doesn’t have to be scary, intimidating, confusing, or challenging. Allow me to show you how it’s done.”

Imagine THAT phrase added to all of your real estate marketing materials.

6 Reasons to Go After Baby Boomers Right Now

They own 26 million homes in the U.S.
They control 70% of all wealth in this country.
They hold more than 50% of all owner-occupied homes.
41% state they will definitely purchase another home.
They are almost completely ignored by the real estate industry.
And, we’re giving you the first 100 prospects on a Baby Boomer list for free right now!