Monday Morning Match is a quick post – maybe a quote, inspirational story or idea – intended to spark some motivation inside each of you so your week gets off to a fantastic start on Monday morning.
The Stats Don’t Lie – Real Estate is a “Relationship Business”
Every year during the National Association of REALTORS Conference and Trade Show, the annual Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers is released. It’s one of my favorite reports to dig into each year because it reveals exactly what Buyers and Sellers were thinking during their real estate transaction the year before. It’s been said that “the best indication of future behavior is past behavior” so if we want to know how to serve our customers and clients we should really study this report.
Started in 1981, “the Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers report has been the leading industry source of trusted insight into consumer
behavior for nearly four decades. It has grown and evolved
to keep up with changing home buying trends and the need
for more information.” The original profile asked just 59 questions of respondents while the 2018 version asked 129 questions, gathering much more data and insights for the industry.
“Data is collected from a nationally representative sample of recent home buyers who purchased a primary residence in the 12-month period between July and June. Data is also representative of the geographic distribution of home sales.”
What you know will make you a living but who you know could make you a fortune
Two of the main exhibits I always like looks at first asks about how the customer chose the agent they ended up using for their transaction. The profile asks the same questions of both Buyers and Sellers. We all know that this is a relationship business so it’s no surprise that a personal relationship of some sort is a critical component of how a customer chooses their Realtor.
(Click on the images to enlarge)
While it’s no surprise that the majority (41%) of Buyers responded that their Realtor was referred by (or is) a neighbor, friend, or relative, and a little more than 1 out of 10 were “repeat clients” (12%), several of the next highest connections were through some sort of personal relationship. The connection could have come through another Realtor, a company referral or a good first impression at an Open House, but when you crunch the numbers you’ll find a whopping 65% of Buyers found their Realtor through some sort of personal relationship.
On the Seller side, it’s even better news for those of you who are focused on “building relationships” as 72% of people selling their homes chose their Realtor based on some sort of personal connection. While 4 out of 10 people still turned to a friend, neighbor, or relative for the connection, almost a quarter of the Sellers used an agent they had used before – maybe to purchase the home they are now selling?
As the holidays creep closer, the daylight hours become shorter, and business hits its traditional end of the year slow down, these graphs and data should give you some inspiration to make sure that you’re spending part of every day building relationships, solving problems, and having fun. If people are thinking of making a move in the new year, those conversations should be starting now, and hopefully, you’re going to be part of them. None of us know where our next Seller or Buyer will come from but the odds tell us, they are probably going to come from someone we know…or someone that they know.
Get out there and start putting some lines in the water and remember to let the hooks you are casting create some ripples on the water. Those ripples just might turn up your next big catch.
You can download highlights or purchase the full 2018 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers here