These surprising anecdotal sacrifices underline this generation’s testament to how important homeownership ranks on their future to-do list. However, it’s evident that they are aware that hard work, research and planning are what will make their visions of owning a home a reality.
The Future of Real Estate
Gen Z brains are wired for the fast delivery of content, data and images from computers, video games and the Internet, so it’s only natural that the digital world will have a huge impact on their home-buying process. Not surprisingly, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate found that 95 percent of Gen Z’s future homeowners surveyed believe they will take key steps in the home-buying process online, with viewing home listings and taking virtual tours reigning supreme. While this generation has been navigating the mobile and online space for years, a 59 percent majority believe they will undertake the search process for their future home with help from a real estate agent. When it comes to buying, a mere 19 percent believe they are likely to purchase a home online, while 81 percent will use more traditional methods such as working with a real estate agent. These two statistics are critical, in that they speak to Gen Z’s belief in the value of a professional to guide them in this most sophisticated transaction, despite the abundance of information available today—and the seemingly limitless innovations in store for tomorrow and beyond.
“With every new generation of consumers that enters the real estate industry, we as professionals must extend our boundaries,” says Kevin Woody, CEO, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Go Realty. “What makes Gen Z unique goes beyond the fact that we must find new and better ways to service a tech-savvy generation: We had that charge with millennials. The Gen Z imperative is more complex: cultivating and encouraging conservative financial values embodied in future consumers who have known nothing but technology innovation in every area of their lives.”
These findings support the notion that Gen Z teens understand the magnitude of buying a home and that it’s not the same type of transaction as buying a pair of sneakers online. “For teens, online research is a given,” says Gutfreund. “However, they recognize there are people who are true specialists in a field. If real estate professionals position themselves as savvy partners, it will really resonate with this audience. They also respect companies that stand for something.”
“In today’s world, it’s fun and fairly simple for a consumer to shop for a home online through standout brand websites and national portals, but nothing has been done to truly evolve the transaction process,” says Rand. “A client can have an amazing experience ‘shopping’ with an agent, but all that goodwill can be destroyed once the client has to go through the transaction process. As real estate professionals, we need to do more to control that transactional experience. For example, we need to make a drastic move toward digital document platforms, because even people in their 20s don’t do documents and they definitely don’t have fax machines. All indications show the Gen Z consumer expects things faster than ever, so we need to get past the 90-days-to-close mentality, and find ways to work with lenders to streamline the mortgage process.”
“We need to remember that the consumer is what makes our business tick,” says Chris. “It’s our responsibility as real estate professionals to do better each and every day and evoke change in order to meet their ever-evolving needs. We need to share; we need to push ourselves to take steps as trusted advisors to make one of the most challenging and emotionally charged transactions of a person’s life easier and memorable. We must always keep asking what’s next so we can lay the groundwork for the best generation of real estate professionals serving what I believe to be the next great generation—and beyond.”
About the Survey
The Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Gen Z survey was conducted by Wakefield Research among 1,000 U.S. teenagers ages 13-17, between July 18 and July 29, 2014 using an email invitation and an online survey.
For more information, visit www.BHGRE.com.
